Dragon Age: West Hill Chronicles
by demismith9595
Summary: A Dragon Age fan fiction set in 9:28 Dragon, two years before the events of Dragon Age: Origins. Five adventurers are thrown together after their suspect behaviour after a grisly murder in northern Ferelden. Facing trials and tribulations in their quest they must overcome whatever is thrown at them to clear their names and return home.
1. Chapter 1

The clock in the centre of the village of West Hill struck 9 with a resounding, disjointed clanging noise. The barmaid of The Torn Veil pub opened a window and looked out into the grey morning; strange weather for northern Ferelden. She looked down. Then she started screaming.

***  
9:30.

Commander Weathers examined the body laying outside The Torn Veil, using one heavy boot to lift the corpse slightly off the dirt path. The body had been split entirely up the middle, navel to neck. The assailant wasn't exactly delicate about it either; the edges of the wound were jagged with strips of flesh gleaming sickly red in the watery sunlight. He looked up, attempting to hide his nausea to see the few guests of the tavern looking at the grisly scene from the dark stairs within the pub. One, a dwarf, grunted as he pushed past a woman on the stairs, who looked at him indignantly and swore. The dwarf took his place at the bar and gestured for a pint of ale. Weathers felt his lip curl in a xenophobic sneer. He would make sure to question ALL of the Torn Veil's guests today.

***

Meanwhile, in a nearby coastal valley the Keeper of a clan of Dalish elves bent low over an obviously feverish elven hunter and listened to his laboured breathing. His skin glowed brightly with sickness and he shone all over with sweat, his eyes wide and bloodshot as he struggled to breathe. A second hunter, female, stroked the hair of the first while humming a soothing dirge to settle his spirit. The Keeper looked up at the female and shook her head sadly.  
'Da'len, I am afraid this sickness is beyond our powers to cure,' the Keeper began, sitting upright and pushing away a lock of red hair from her tired face 'You'll have to go to the nearest human town for some medi-'  
At this, the female hunter stood upright, dropping the longbow she had clutched in her free hand 'A shem village? Do you know what they would do to me on sight?'  
'Lyna, please.'  
The girl, Lyna sat back down.  
'Ma nuvenin, Keeper,' she said, lowering her eyes as she spoke. She did not pick up her bow again, a sign of submission.  
'Ma serannas, Lyna,' the Keeper 'The nearest town is West Hill, about an hours walk from our current location, although you may take an aravel if it suits you...'  
'No thank you, Keeper' said Lyna meekly, collecting her bow and bowing slightly.  
With one last, hopeless look at the dying boy on the ground, Terwynn left the aravel and headed towards the scene of the crime.

***

From under the stairs at the Torn Veil darted a skinny figure in purple and blue robes. It ducked behind the bar and crawled along the dusty boards. Luckily, most of the patrons were still distracted by the dead man on the dirt outside to notice one apostate behind the bar. All but one.  
'Hey, Twinkles,' came a grunting voice 'Fill 'er up, eh?'  
The mage slowly raised his blonde head above the bar and eyed his questioner. He had a long braided beard and a bald head. He was stocky and stout and clearly still a bit drunk from the night before.  
'You... Know... I'm a mage?'  
The dwarf laughed and banged his tankard on the bar, causing the blonde mage to flinch.  
'Course I did,' he chortled 'Andrastes tits human, if you would wear feathery shoulder pads...'  
The mage scowled at the blaspheming but took the tankard and filled it.  
'Cheers, Twinkles.'  
'It's Garrett.'  
'Gesundheit.'  
'No, my name is Garrett,' replied the mage, standing up straight behind the bar at last 'And you are?'  
'Tired.'  
'Your name, dwarf?'  
The dwarf laughed heartily and extended one stubby arm over the bar, using the bar stool for a little extra reach.  
'Lairwulf,' said the dwarf with a belch 'Formerly of Orzammar.'  
The mage shook the strong hand, wincing a little as the dwarf crushed his fingers.  
'Formerly?'  
'Now that, Twinkle Toes,' said Lairwulf, leaning back with his ale 'Is a long story...'

***  
10:40

By 10, more guests had started to filter into the barroom of The Torn Veil. This included a hulking, silent mountain of a man who immediately went to the bar, ignoring the astonished faces of those around him and the attempts of a guard to stop him and drag him into the questioning area set up by the door. He had skin darkened from outdoor work and a face obscured by a thick black beard. He was an Avvari hillsman and he moved with the melancholy of a man who has suffered a great loss. He took a place next to Lairwulf and waved at Garrett for a drink. Shrugging, Garrett served him a large ale.

***

Outside, Lyna had arrived, sweaty and panting from her desperate run. Thoughts of the painful fever gripping her brother pushed her onwards, until she glimpsed the disturbingly empty village. She broke into a jog and saw the guards outside the tavern, the body on the ground and stopped dead. A young guard next to the tavern door spotted her. He looked far too small for his heavy plate armor and had a sprinkling of acne across his greasy face. Lyna, even from her distance across the village square, watched his eyes slide from her short stature to her pointed ears to the swirling tan tattoos around her eyes and cheeks. His face hardened and he beckoned her over with one ill-fitting gauntlet. Swearing to herself, Lyna obeyed, and was dragged into the Tavern.  
Inside, a few women stared at her and men glanced defensively, as though she was a threat alone. A tall, broad chested man turned around and looked at her, as did three people at the bar: a dwarf, a skinny mage and an enormous human male. The first man, who wore the same armor as the young guard that gripped her arm, sneered as he took in her appearance in mush the same way as the rest of the tavern. He started towards her and Lyna noticed the large man at the bar stand slightly, as though to intercept him. The tall man, who was a Commander from the look of his heraldry, looked Lyna dead in the eye then reached out his arm and slapped her on the behind.  
Shocked, Lyna pulled her arm away from the young guard and notched an arrow. Before she could aim, the commander was knocked sidewards by a huge, black blur.

***

The Avvari hillsman pinned Commander Weathers to the wall.  
'Weathers, you filthy bastard,' he growled, shaking the commander in his ridiculous shiny armor 'I believe you owe the lady an apology.'  
Weathers looked over the hillsman's shoulder and laughed sarcastically at Lyna, who had not lowered her bow, despite the young guard grabbing her shoulders.  
'Lady? She's nothing but a knife-ear, Rogar.'  
Rogar, the hillsman, shook Weathers again.  
'Elf or not, she is a lady and you.. frisked her.' Rogar growled.  
'Ah, but frisking her is exactly what I was doing,' said the commander with a smile 'Private, would you be kind enough to check the, ah.. lady's back pocket? Left?'  
The young guard released Lyna's shoulders and with a confused look on his face, reached into the pocket. She lowered her weapon and watched over her shoulder as he drew out something she didn't even know was there.

It was a long, thin, bloodied knife.


	2. Chapter 2

Lyna sat on a wooden bench, staring at her intertwined fingers that lay in her lap as she clenched and unclenched her hands. The dungeon cell around her was damp and freezing, despite the lack of ventilation. The bars of the cell were thick and new looking, no rust or signs of weakness - something that the elf herself must be careful not to show.

On the other side of the cell, Garrett quietly prayed. He wanted to live through his incarceration with a supposed murderess. He promised the Maker that he would never attempt to escape Kinloch Hold again after this. He swore to stop letting Anders use him as a guinea pig for his harebrained schemes. That was if the templars even took him back to the Circle alive...

His thoughts were interrupted by a curt 'Stop that'. The voice came from across the corridor. In the cell directly opposite (which had noticeably thicker bars) sat the huge, hulking figure of Rogar, the Avvarian who had assaulted Commander Weathers. Rogar was sat on the filthy floor of his cell, as the bench bolted to the wall appeared to be unable to support his considerable mass. He held up a huge hand, palm outwards in the direction of the scrawny mage.

'Your muttering is interrupting my meditation'. Garrett almost laughed at the idea of a giant meditating, but the imposing hillsman even terrified him through stone and steel. He stopped praying out loud and instead turned his attention to Lyna.

***

'Commander, you cannot seriously expect them to visit the keep!' exclaimed Sergeant Lewis, Weathers' second in command. In his hand he brandished a letter, on which some words stood out in bright ink. 'Dire', 'pain', 'panic'. 'Death'. Weathers waved one armoured hand, dismissing the Sergeant's complaints as if there were nothing at stake.

'Commander, only a madman would respond to this letter,' said the Sergeant wearily 'Only a group of madmen would agree to travel to such a damned place on the word of this letter!'

The Commander sat at his impressive mahogany desk. He smiled sternly at the Sergeant, as if about to reprimand him.

'Well,' he said, still with the ambiguous smile 'We do indeed have a madman. And a mad elf for that matter,' Here, he smiled more broadly and signed a second letter that lay on his desk 'But they will not be responding to that letter, but this one.' He handed the letter to the Sergeant, who read it over and smiled too.

'You believe this will work? A report that everything is well at the keep?'

'Dated a few months ago!' the Commander boomed jubilantly 'Simply a visit to check that all is indeed... well.'

***

'So, did you kill him?'

Lyna glared angrily at her questioner, the indignant mage. Before she could spit out a scathing retort something scuffled, belched and then fell to the floor behind Rogar. The hillsman curled his lip in disgust and the dwarf from the tavern pushed past him to the front of the cell.

'Really, Twinkles?' Lairwulf laughed 'That duster was huge. Our friend here would have been crushed by him. Unless it was from a distance judging by that bow action in the Veil!' Lairwulf cracked up laughing here, and even Lyna and Rogar gave half-hearted chuckles. Garrett, meanwhile, looked simply confused.

'What were you even arrested for?' he demanded of the dwarf, whose vein was visibly throbbing in his forehead.

'He probably can't remember.' said Lyna dryly, still glaring at her accuser. Once again, she was interrupted before she could insult the mage who stared back with distrust. This time it was no whispered prayer or hungover shout that stopped her tongue but the thick wooden door that led to the upper floors of West Hill's fort. It flew open and met the stone wall with a clunk that resounded through the narrow room. Light flooded in and cast the shadow of a man in heavy armour against the far wall. Commander Weathers strode in, waving a vellum in his hand.

'Good morning, delinquents!' he called, running a metal covered hand across the bars of Rogar and Lairwulf's cell 'I hold in my hand the key to your freedom!' He opened the folded vellum and made to read, but stopped himself and spoke once more.

'Or would you prefer to hear of your fates first?' Weathers pondered gazing around 'Dwarf, you will be released after you are fully sober and no longer crave ale nor wine. Released into the custody of your brother, Svit of Orzammar,' Lairwulf grunted in disapproval but did not argue.

'Garrett of the Circle, will be released to the Templar Order later today. They will do with you as they see fit,' Weathers continued 'Rogar of the former Avvar tribe outside of West Hill, you will be banished from this village. And the knife-ear...' Weathers paused, as if savouring the delicious verdict he had decided upon most easily.

'Elf, you will be taken to the gallows three days hence and hung by the neck until death.'

Lyna remained silent and emotionless and Weathers began the next part of his speech.

'BUT,' Weathers began, waving the vellum above his head in triumph 'This could be your salvation! We received this letter from some troops stationed at Fort Crestian. It states that all is well at the keep. However, this is dated a few months prior to this day. We have received nothing since.' Weathers looked once more at his literally captive audience.

'All we require of you is a trip, as a group, to check the fort and then return.' Weathers finished, leaning against the bars of Lyna's cell. Lyna blinked quickly at the letter in his hand and stood with the speed of her race.

'Comman-' she began and was silenced when he turned and slammed his hand around her throat.

'Silence, knife-ear. I will assume that you are all in agreement with my offer and elave you now.'

Weathers stalked out, slamming the door behind him and casting the room once more into darkness. Lyna slumped against the cell door.

'Are you alright?' Rogar asked, leaning forward out of his cross-legged pose.

Lyna glanced upwards, clutching the red mark that encircled her slender neck.

'How old was that letter?'

'A couple of months,' replied Garrett, interested in where this was headed 'Why?'

Lyna looked directly at the mage, as if daring him to oppose her.

'The ink on that page was still wet.'


	3. Chapter 3

9:28 Dragon.

A weak light permeated the dungeons, just enough to rouse the slumbering beast that was Rogar. He lay supine on the dusty floor, unable to sleep in the flimsy wooden cot he was provided with, next to the snoring, slobbering lump of Lairwulf. Rogar had been in the same cell enough times to know that the presence of light meant that the door was open; there were no windows to allow sunlight, and the prisoners were not even provided with candles. Pressing his large palms to the floor he pushed himself into a sitting position.

Rogar noted that the mage in the cell opposite, Garrett, was also awake and appeared to have not even slept. Was he really afraid of the short, lithe elf who slept so peacefully opposite him? Her peaceful sleep both reassured and worried the hillsman; only someone purely innocent or supremely uncaring could sleep that way after what they had witnessed the day before they were thrown into the wretched place.

Garrett himself felt the gaze of the enormous man on him, but did not dare drop his guard for a second. Focusing all his magic on remaining awake through the long night, he had watched as Lyna curled up and drifted into sleep. He had hoped, somewhere deep in his heart, to see her chest stop moving in the night. Wasn't that supposed to happen if the Dalish were away from their tribe for long enough? He hoped, in that dark place within him, that it would happen on their journey in the weeks to come.

***

Four guards, in full plate complete with helmets, left the office of Commander Weathers just as Rogar awoke. Weathers himself smiled a thin smile that did not reach his eyes, over his hands whose fingers were tented in front of his face. His plan was coming to fruition and he rejoiced inside. The loss of Rogar would bring people back to West Hill: he had even scared off many of the guard. Mages were trouble no matter what, so the loss of one apostate from West Hill would be no problem. As for the dwarf and the knife-ear... Weathers' face scrunched up at the thought of them. They were lower than humans in his eyes; literally, in the case of Lairwulf and his Stone-worshipping kin.

***

Unaware of the mental xenophobic attack against him three floors up, Lairwulf grunted and kicked out at the guard who was attempting to pull him from his cot.  
'Sod off, duster!' he growled into the straw pillow 'Veata!'  
Throwing her hands up in the air, the guard stopped tugging on Lairwulf's legs and motioned for her taller, broader companions to try. Shrugging at the other three prisoners, she took her place behind them, hand on sword.  
Lined up, shoulder to shoulder, the prisoners watched the scene in various states of disgust, indifference and amusement. They even cracked smiles when the dwarf suddenly released his grip on the bed and the guards flew backwards, dragging Lairwulf with them.

Swearing and spitting vehemently, Lairwulf staggered to his feet with as much grace as he could muster and lined up next to Lyna at the front of the line, so that they were in height order when they turned to the door.  
'You are aware that we are to escort you to the furthest freehold in the jurisdiction of West Hill,' said the female guard from behind Rogar 'And no further?'  
The party made grunts in agreement.  
'March.'

***

Weathers watched through his enormous, stained-glass window as the four prisoners were led out of town. Flanked on each side by one of his own guards, they shuffled onward even as the citizens of West Hill lined the dirt tracks, baying and car-calling. He followed the path of an airborne tomato as it flew through the air and slammed into the shield of the guard next to the elf. The child who threw the fruit elicited a proud feeling in the commander as he screamed a slur and then vanished into the crowd.

The stained glass window depicted the death of Andraste in cobalt blue and blazing gold. He wished a far less glorious death on the four beings below.

***

Lyna hummed as they walked, stroking the slender limb of her bow as it curved over her shoulder. Happy to have her bow, knives and arrows back, she smiled into the sunlight as it beat down on her face. The wide world was her home and she revelled in it.  
'Shut UP,' groaned Garrett, nudging the elf with the butt of his staff, forgetting it had a long blade affixed there 'And stop stroking your damn bow!'  
Lyna scowled over her shoulder.  
'The bow's name is Mirabelle,' she spat 'And I had to fight a dwarf for that name, so I'd prefer you used it.' Garrett rolled his eyes, but acquiesced to her musical humming. He found he was rather enjoying it.

A pair of farmers, a middle aged couple who were tanned from hard labour in the sun, looked up as the band passed and waved. Unaware of what had occurred so far from West Hill itself, they smiled and shouted.  
'Good luck on your adventures!'  
Lairwulf chuckled.  
'So we're adventurers now,' he grinned 'Great.'

'Halt.'  
The group halted.  
'We leave you here,' the tallest guard said, the sunlight glinting off his helmet 'Be sure not to get lost. Follow your maps and report back to Commander Weathers within the next three weeks.'  
'Or we'll be forced to send anoth-' began the female guard.  
The reason she never finished became abundantly clear as she fell forwards with a curved dagger buried in her spine. The shorter male guard was revealed as she fell, helmet missing, curly black hair glowing in the sun.  
'You!' shouted the other guard, unsheathing his sword before the shocked adventurers. The dark-skinned man in guard armour wasted no time in hurling a second knife into the exposed throat of the guard, felling him. Garrett and Lyna raised their weapons in defence, an arrow already notched and an incantation brewing on Garrett's lips.

'What the bloody hell are you wearing Blaine?'

Garrett looked on in shock as the enormous Rogar grabbed the killer in one of his muscled arms and pulled him into a side hug. The man, Blaine, wriggled artfully away and dragged off the heavy chest plate, revealing a lighter, leather breastplate underneath.

'I had to get out of that sodding town!' he shouted, switching his boots to a pair lined in wolf fur 'Some bloke! Cut up outside MY pub! MY Veil!' His accent was distinctly Orlesian and he spat on the floor. 'Screw the pub, screw the town and CALL OFF YOUR BLOODY SOLDIERS!' Lyna and Garrett lowered their weapons sheepishly, looking at the floor.

'So this is the absent bartender?' boomed Lairwulf, who had spent the last 20 minutes leaning in the hilt of his enormous battleaxe 'Twinkle Toes served me in your place. Tasted like nug's piss.' Blaine shrugged.

'It's cheap for imported ale,' he explained 'My cousin, Hubert, he sends it to me across the Waking Sea. Not that it matters now. I am ruined!' The Orlesian began to sob dramatically, even as he wrenched his daggers from the bodies. The rest of the company exchanged confused looks and turned to walk away.

'Wait!' called Blaine 'Take me with you!' He jogged nimbly to the group with a sudden grin replacing the tears that had been there seconds before. 'It's not like I can go back to that pub now, I am suspect number one.'

'I think you'll find that's me,' replied Lyna coolly 'But I will not deny you passage from that cesspit. Anyone else?' The men shrugged. Blaine took this as a good sign, with a happy holler, pushed into the group.

'I even know how to get to the fort you're headed to!' exclaimed the Orlesian 'But first, a detour. Ever heard of The Spoiled Princess?'

Garrett choked on seemingly nothing, causing Rogar to give him a much too hearty slap on the back.

'You do know what is right opposite that place right?' he asked, slightly winded. 'The Circle tower? As in the place full of Templars? As in the place I escaped from? As in they're probably gonna kill me when I get back there?'

'Relax, Twinkles,' grunted Lairwulf as he hefted his axe onto his back 'They're not after you until we finish this little venture.'

'Besides, how can they kill you,' beamed Blaine 'If you die on the way?'

Looking confused at the party's collective look of disbelief, Blaine struck on ahead, with the others following in his wake.

***

Inside the Circle tower's storage, a certain apostate's phylactery began to glow.


	4. Chapter 4

The incline that sloped sharply towards the docks of Lake Calenhad was slippery with frost by the time that the adventurers arrived. The darkness had settled on them once again, after taking a full three days to journey from West Hill to the lake.  
It had not been an easy journey; Blaine chattered incessantly which annoyed Lyna to the point of punching him in the back of the head to stop the smirk on his smug face, Lyna's violence appalled Garrett, Garrett's sensitivity caused Rogar to sneer constantly. Lairwuf found all of this conflict hilarious, of course.

Garrett slipped on the frosty grass and landed roughly on his back. Rogar gave a rough huffing noise that might have been a laugh. At first the mage scowled back but his expression became an ambiguous mix of wonder and revulsion as he took in the sight of Kinloch Hold - the Fereldan Circle - across the black mirror surface of Lake Calenhad. Lyna extended a hand to help him up, which he accepted.  
'I pity you,' she said as she tugged him effortlessly upwards 'Being locked inside all your life. I cannot imagine anything worse.' Garrett brushed down his robes.  
'I knew nothing else. I felt safe,' he replied, checking his blue and purple finery for tears and stains 'I admired and respected the Templars. Mages are dangerous, elf.'  
Lyna shrugged 'In my culture they lead us. Keeping them cooped up just seems claustrophobic and dangerous.'

Faint smoke curled over the trees to their left. Blaine's face lit up when he caught the scent.  
'Fabulous! They're cooking!' He sped off towards the tiny inn, as surefooted on the uneven as a goat.  
'Nose of a mabari.' said Lyna with a smile.  
'And the face of one too.' quipped Rogar, sending a spark of surprise through the group as he led the way after the tiny Orlesian

***  
Inside the Spoiled Princess Blaine was kissing the bewildered bartender on both cheeks, over and over again. The rest of the party strode in and looked almost as confused as the poor innkeeper whose eyes pleaded with them to make him stop. Lyna whistled imperiously at Blaine, who turned and opened his arms wide to them.  
'AhHA,' he cried loudly, startling the sullen faced patrons with his strong accent 'And these are my friends! Lyna, Rogar, Garrett, welcome to the Spoiled Princess! I have booked us a room and we shall stay like kings tonight! Kings!'  
'Your friend seems a little, ah,' spluttered the red-faced barkeep 'Enthusiastic?' The party gave a series of shrugs in response. Rogar strode across the bar in two steps, bowing slightly to avoid the flaming chandelier.  
'And how,' he growled lowly into Blaine's ear 'Do you intend to pay for this, Blaine?'  
Blaine merely wiggled his eyebrows and whispered 'Distract the bartender.'  
Grinning, Lyna loosened the laces at the front of her armour and said 'I'll handle that.'

***  
Once Blaine was sure that Lyna had used her particular talents on the dim-witted barkeep he walked with Lairwulf to the hulking, sallow-faced men who were grouped around a table. He nodded to the dwarf, who slammed his battleaxe into the table. The men jumped.  
'Never seen one like that, eh dusters?' bellowed the dwarf. As he began listing the various benefits of his ridiculously oversized weapon (making innuendos all the way) Blaine crouched behind one of the men and wrapped one stubby fingered hand around his coin purse.  
Then he noticed the wyvern emblazoned on one of their shields.  
Soldiers. From GWAREN.  
But it was too late. he tugged on the purse, but his hands shook so badly that the heavy coins inside clinked together.  
Then stars swam in his vision.

***  
WHAM!  
Blaine flew back five feet as the soldier he was trying to rob slammed his chair into the face of the tiny Orlesian.  
Rogar rushed forward, drawing his thick greatsword as Lairwulf was pinned against the wall by a second, furious soldier. A pulsing red light emanated from the soldiers, who had drawn swords and donned their wyvern emblazoned shields.  
'Beserkers!' called Lairwulf before an elbow was slammed into his throat. Filled with bloodlust, the robbed solder pinned Blaine's hands beneath his chunky knees and slammed his huge fists into Blaine's face. The red light pulsed brighter with each blow and blood began to steam hotly from Blaine's clearly broken nose, choking his screams.  
THUCK.  
An arrow slammed through the neck of the man beating Blaine. He slumped sideways as Lyna loosed another arrow into the eye of the third soldier, who was about to ram his shield into the back of a distracted Rogar. Lairwulf began to turn a dreadful purple and his legs kicked at the wall, suspended by his throat.  
Rogar roared, throwing himself at the soldier who was choking the dwarf and tore him away. The man hit the opposite wall, barely missing Blaine who was screaming shrilly even as Garrett healed his nose with magic behind a barricade of overturned tables. The bartender lay slumped over the bar, stunned with a blow to the head from a deft knee.  
The thrown man was curled over the body of his shot companion and begging for mercy.  
'Messeres, you can't touch me!' he shouted 'I was delivering justice! That bastard tried to rob Orin!'  
Blaine's eyes sparkled smartly  
'It was for the Thieves Guild,' he said thickly, his eyes landing on Lairwulf who was crumpled against the opposite wall 'Of Orzammar!' Lairwulf looked up and tried to object but all that came out was a series of increasingly angry rasps. He resorted to waving his hands back and forth, but was ignored.  
The poor soldier's eyes widened.  
'What have I done to piss off the bloody sodding Thieves Guild? I ain't done nothing! To no one! I swear!' He held his hands up in a plainitive gesture. 'Please messeres, I swear on Andraste's sword that I never did nothing! I-'  
He was cut off by a whooshing noise, a sting of cold air that whipped everyone's hair and a tinkle like broken glass. Garrett's hands glowed blue as the soldier was encased in a block of ice.  
'He was pissing me off.' he said coolly.  
Voices floated in from outside.  
'It was in here sers, this is where the commotion came from!' called a reedy voice.  
The door of the inn flew open.

***  
A skinny man in a boatman's uniform entered first, out of breath and glowing with the sickening pride of a nobody involved in something above his station, followed by four men in silver armour emblazoned with swords. Templars.  
The first, a blonde man with a kingly, Roman nose waved his right hand. Garrett's hands spluttered blue once and then faded. Another, also blonde, patted him on the shoulder.  
'All yours, Cullen.' said the first.  
Cullen stepped forward and looked sternly at Garrett before speaking.  
'We had word that you were excused from the tower,' he spoke deeply 'But after this,' - he waved a hand imperiously around the blood splattered, ice coated room - 'We're going to have to take you. And our cadet here dispelled all your magic, so no use trying anything funny. Take him.' The two Templars who kept on their bucket-like helmets grabbed Garrett, who looked around at his party: the incapacitated dwarf, the exhausted elf, the blood soaked hillsman, the whimpering rogue. They would be no help to him now.

Willingly, he walked with the mage hunters out the door. The cadet turned to face them as they left.

'We have no jurisdiction over you,' his voice was pleasant and authoritative 'You are free to continue on your quest, but a murderous mage is not something you can just take along.' His face took on an awkward contortion. 'Sorry.'

He shut the tavern door. Blaine quickly took the money from the corpses they had left. Rogar held out one huge hand.

'We should at least pay the bartender what we owe. For the room we never used. Before we go.'

Blaine looked confused as he handed over two thick golden coins. 'Go where?'

Lyna smiled as she figured out what Rogar was thinking before he said it:

'To get our murderous mage of course.'


	5. Chapter 5

Blaine's face fell dramatically.  
'But we don't know anything of the tower!' he cried dramatically 'How will we ever find him in that dreadful place?' He sat on the ground where he was, staring incredulously up at Rogar. He stared so intently that he didn't notice Lairwulf trudging up behind him before-

'AAARGH!'  
Lairwulf bellowed a war cry as he leapt on top of the sitting Orlesian, arms outstretched, blonde beard swinging. The dwarf may have been short but his stout body easily flattened Blaine's skinny frame. Squealing, Blaine gazed up at Rogar, who stared on in stunned amusement. Lyna, who was pushing the plump bartender into the back room made no effort to hide her glee at Blaine's predicament and promptly let out a snorting laugh.  
Lairwulf, however, found nothing funny. He bent Blaine almost in half and pinned his arms in the small of his back and growled into his ear:  
'Tower's the least of your problems. Think you're being funny you little blighter? Dragging the Orzammar Thieves Guild into that? You've never been to Orzammar in your life, flaming duster, nug humping..' Blaine's sobs cut him off. Lairwulf released him, but not before jamming a knee into his ribs and grunting 'My brother's in the Guild. Always has been.'  
Rogar's face lit up in recognition 'Svit? The one you were going to be released to?' Lairwulf nodded as a reply, going to fetch his axe from the table where he left it embedded. Lyna returned, panting slightly from the back room.  
'He.. was heavier... than he looked.' She bent double with her hands on her knees then pointed at the ceiling 'I am NOT built for weight lifting.' After a few more seconds of panting she retrieved the arrows she had fired and turned towards the enormous Rogar again.  
'So,' she smiled 'what's the plan?' Rogar shrugged and dropped his two sovereigns on the bar.  
'I was going to figure out when we got there.'

***  
The four members of the party found themselves squatting behind a sparse row of shrubs that grew in the gelatinous, viscous mud on the shores of Lake Calenhad. Lairwulf grumbled, landing ass first in the sticky dirt while the others remained on their haunches.  
'So, is anyone familiar with the Tower?' he asked, righting himself.  
'No.' The other three answered in almost complete unison.  
'Fantastic,' replied the dwarf, stripping a twig of it's leaves 'And there's obviously just the one entrance and we have no way of getting over the bloody lake and-' Blaine once again cut Lairwulf off by darting out from behind the bushes, followed by Lyna who was chastising him in loud whispers. Blaine's footsteps echoed in the night as he clattered down the docks, followed swiftly by the elf.

***  
Lyna shot up as Blaine ran towards the docks. Disoriented, dreamlike, she followed him, begging him to stop so they could think of a plan. Before she knew it they were at the end of the docks and Blaine had a thin dagger pressed against the throat of the boatman.  
'Halam sahlin!' she begged.  
The blade shot across the night, it's cutting edge like quicksilver.  
The boatman dropped and fell forward into the lake. Rippled emanated from the spot where he disappeared, lapping against the shore. Lyna was speechless for all of a second before she was slapping Blaine and cursing in Elvish.  
'Hey, hey!' he spat 'You shot people in the tavern.' She stopped and glared at him.  
'Fine. Call the others over.'

***  
'Hey, Jasper, were we expecting a new mage?' The templars guarding the front door of Kinloch Hold gazed at the small boat that held four people; a mage and three of their own they assumed.  
'I don't think so,' replied Jasper, squinting out into the dark to make out the floating shadow of the boat 'Looks like a knife ear though, shit. They're always so violent.'  
With these words an arrow whizzed past his ear and sank into the wooden door behind him with a thunk.  
THUNK THUNK.  
The next two hit the door too.  
THUNK.  
This one hit Jasper in the neck. Sinking to his knees he pulled the arrow out with a gargling noise, looking up at his companion with an almost confused expression. His blood foamed out of the wound, scarlet and shocking. His companion bent to help him.  
He didn't hear the boat hit shore.

***  
CRUNCH.  
Rogar smiled with a sick, sweet satisfaction as the neck of the templar twisted and broke in his huge hands. The tiny man fell and he stripped him of his helmet.  
He had missed this. The thrill of the kill, the righteous murder. He had not felt this since his tribe...  
His tribe...  
He put the thought out of his head and turned his attention back to relieving the templar of his heavy plate armour. He held the chestplate out to Lairwulf, who snorted with derision.  
'When was the last time you saw a dwarven Templar, giant?'  
'When was the last time you saw a giant Templar, dwarf?'  
A muffled, accented voice spoke up.  
'Shut up the both of you,' Blaine moaned from under his overly large 'I feel ridiculous!' Lyna jabbed him in the ribs with a branch that she had procured from the shore. This was to be her fake staff to make her pretend to be a mage. Blaine held on to Mirabelle and her arrows, after a growled warning of what Lyna would do to harm his genitals if he so much as coughed on the slinky longbow.  
Rogar rammed the impractical helmet over his unkempt black hair and pulled off his blue shirt to replace it with the armour. He handed the huge garment to Lyna.  
'Robes.' he grunted, tightening straps and buckling buckles. Lyna grimaced. It stank. She slipped it on over her leather armour.  
'Will I do?' she asked, turning around. The eyes of the men roved over her body.  
'You'll do.'  
Lairwulf slipped around the side of the tower. He would meet them when they left... Hopefully with Twinkle Toes in tow.  
Rogar knocked on the heavy door.

***  
Blaine could not believe that their flimsy disguises had worked. He knew that it was him that had made the first move by running to the docks but he had expected them to stop them before they'd got to the Tower, let alone inside, let alone into the bloody apprentice quarters. The 'templars' had been tasked with transporting the new 'mage' to her room, learning all the way.  
They had asked for her phylactery, but they claimed it would be coming tomorrow, due to the lateness of their arrival. Lie after lie dripped from their lips, always hidden behind the shiny helms. Lyna had remained silent and composed. Blaine supposed she was in shock, coming from somewhere where mages were revered to a place where they were kept locked up day and night.  
They reached the room and Lyna turned to them. She spotted another templar down the hallway: Cullen. He appeared to be rehearsing a conversation to himself in whispers. He twirled a flower between his fingers. Pleased that he was distracted, she looked up into the eye slit in Rogar's helmet.  
'Check upstairs for Garrett,' she breathed, not daring to speak any louder. Blaine patted her arms and sides, as if frisking her for hidden objects as an alibi 'From what I've heard, full mages have their blood things sent to Denerim. Don't go looking for it.'  
'Who'd try and destroy a phylactery?' Rogar grunted 'They're probably behind wards and magical protection. Bloody stupid to try and get one.' He nodded at Blaine and they turned away towards the stairs.  
Lyna watched her bow leave on the back of the most annoying man she knew and felt utterly hopeless.

***  
Upstairs, Rogar and Blaine almost walked straight into another mage. Blaine let out a strangled cry of surprise, but the mage's face remained composed and almost bored.  
'Good evening,' he said in a placid, toneless voice 'I am Owain. Do you require anything from the stockroom?' Rogar shook his head and made to walk away, but Blaine stared at the mage. A Chantry sunburst was emblazoned on his forehead.  
'Are you Tranquil?' he asked, his voice sad.  
'I am indeed,' replied Owain 'Do you require anything from the stockroom?'  
The man was barely human.  
Rogar had an idea.  
'Have you seen a blonde mage? Garrett? Do you know him?' he asked, hoping that by some stroke of luck the Tranquil mage knew something.  
'Indeed, sers,' said Owain, his voice never changing, which unnerved Blaine 'He was lead towards the Templar chambers around an hour ago. Do you require anything from the stockroom?'  
Blaine went rigid and made his way past Owain in a rush. Owain did not startle when Blaine shoved him.  
'Hey!' called Rogar 'What are you freaking out for?'  
Blaine swallowed, his Adam's apple visibly bouncing under his helmet.  
'There's only one reason they take a mage upstairs,' he said 'We do not talk about it in Orlais, so closely watched by the Chantry. But here..' He jabbed one gloved finger at Owain.  
'Garrett is being made Tranquil.'


	6. Chapter 6

Blaine tore his Templar helmet off of his head and shook out his wild brown hair. His face had grown dark and lost the bright cheery glow that he always seemed to emanate. He discarded the helmet like so much trash, no longer caring for the disguise as he marched towards the door, seeking the stairs upwards. Rogar followed in a more calm fashion. Owain smiled wanly at the pair as they passed.

Blaine twitched with anger as he walked.  
'I expect this kind of shit if the mage was a maleficar,' he spat, eyes roaming the corridor that they walked down 'But he killed ONE guy. A guy that was trying to kill me, I might add!' Rogar offered up nothing in return. The sorcerers of his clan had practised blood magic and none had succumbed to the temptation of the demons they consorted with. He supposed that a demon's lure was stronger when the alternative was becoming like Owain; an emotionally decapitated freak.

Several mages watched from doorways as they passed, their faces contorted in confusion at the sight of the strange new templars. Two, a dark haired woman and a blonde man, spoke quickly and quietly, backing away with distrust as the 'templars' approached. Rogar and Blaine paid them no mind, instead breaking into a jog that set their heavy armour jingling as they spotted the stairs.

Lyna's bow, Mirabelle, bounced against Blaine's back and he could not help but wonder how she was holding up, unarmed and helpless downstairs.

***  
Lyna sat on her allocated bed, back to the wall, watching everyone around her with wide eyes. They appeared to be perfectly content, locked up like cattle in this hellhole. She almost wished that she was a mage after all so that she could incinerate the next templar to walk through the door, just to avenge those they kept locked up. She was almost starting to panic when a shuffling noise caught her attention and something was shoved under the door.

A human mage jumped off her bed, still fully clothed and went to collect it. She had dark hair and some kind of noble crest sewn into her robes and did not seem to notice she was being watched by Lyna, the only dorm-mate who was still awake. The object under the door appeared to be a flower. Lyna smiled, remembering the templar from earlier as a pink blush marked the cheeks of the human.

She hoped they wouldn't hurt Cullen during their escape.

***  
Rogar and Blaine had stationed themselves outside of a door in the Templar Quarters. Firelight flickered warmly from underneath the door, warming their feet as Blaine pressed his ear to the door.

'I hear nothing,' he whispered, his accent becoming thicker the lower his voice fell 'Do you think they've done it already?' Rogar shook his head before Blaine continued 'No, quite right, they would have left immediately. I am sure even Templars have consciences.' Then came a cough from behind the door and a reedy, female voice saying 'it's ready.'

'Screw this.' growled Rogar and lifted one tree-trunk sized leg and smashed the door in with one well placed kick, carrying him into the room.

Garrett was laid on a wooden bench, gazing placidly up the the ceiling where the firelight danced. A Tranquil mage was packing away runes and other enchanting equipment over in a corner.

And over Garrett stood three templars. Two holding his arms. The third with a glowing brand in the shape of the Chantry sunburst dangling over Garrett's forehead.

Rogar's entrance hung in the air for a minute. All was silence but for the clattering of runes. And then Rogar stepped forward, grabbed one of Templars by his hair and swung him behind him in a blind rage.

Blaine fired two arrows from the door, one sinking into the back of the thrown Templar, the other sticking uselessly in the table. He grunted in frustration and drew his daggers instead, throwing himself into the fray.

The Tranquil brand fell to the floor with a clang and a sizzle. The noise seemed to break whatever trance that Garrett was in as he yelled out in terror.

Rogar sank his enormous greatsword into the chest of the Templar who had been inches from branding the mage. He drew his arm back and stabbed him again, blood and steel flashing before his eyes, teeth gritted in a snarl, breaths torn from his lungs painfully and harshly. The templar had been dead long before Garrett's screaming broke through Rogar's red mist and stopped him.

The man was a bloody pulp on the end of the blade. The body slid off the metal with an almost comical squelching noise.

Blaine had refrained from killing the Tranquil woman, instead knocking her out with an elbow to the temple. Her sunburst burn inspired revulsion in his stomach and he quickly turned and sought the final Templar.

He was gone.

'Giant!' he called 'The third guard..' He did not have to finish. Rogar's nostrils flared and he tore the restraints away from Garrett's arms and legs. He almost felt sick when he saw the wooden bench up close - it was covered with deeply gouged fingernail marks.

Garrett rubbed his wrists and sat up. Before he could speak Rogar had yanked him to his feet and pulled him out the door.

'No time to get you a staff,' Blaine explained, sheathing his daggers again 'We have to get out of here.'

Garrett nodded, running to keep up with Rogar's huge strides, before noting the absence of their elven and dwarven companions. Rogar gave a rushed explanation of their plan as they approached the stairs back to Owain's stockroom.

'You're all insane,' gasped Garrett 'We're going to die.'

Outside, Lairwulf scraped the blade of his battleaxe against a notched rock to sharpen it. He tested it with his thumb and scarlet blood blossomed in testament to it's keenness. He had kept a close eye on the only entrance and wondered why there were no replacement guards to replace the ones they had killed on the way in.

He supposed the Templars were all busy.

***  
Garrett was the first to arrive back outside the stockroom. Three templars turned to look at him as Rogar and Blaine drew up behind him and stopped dead. Owain was unconscious on the floor, a purple lump raised on his head.

The two parties gazed at each other, stunned, before one of the templars dragged up a crossbow that was too heavy for him and fired one bolt wildly at Garrett.

Garrett ducked, Rogar leapt sideways and the bolt slammed into the closed door behind them before Blaine's dagger flashed through the air and sank into the tiny eye slit in the archer's helmet.

'Nice aim,' called the largest of the Templars, holding his arms up in a gesture of surrender 'Hand over the mage, and nobody else has to get hurt tonight.' His other companion trembled with fear.

'I have considered your offer,' said Garrett, surprising everyone with his sudden boldness 'And I say this to it.' And he hurled a fireball at the stunned templars. Before the pair could even consider dispelling the magic they were hurled backwards, their armour heated immeasurably against their skin. The large one screamed and clawed at his red hot helmet, as Garrett ran forwards, calling on the others to follow. They stormed onwards, clattering down the stairs as the flames roared behind them, seeking the fresh air down the stairs before them. Blaine stumbled and fell over his own feet, tumbling down the last few steps before being dragged upright by Rogar and continuing their desperate run.

Despite the insanity unfolding outside, the doors to the mage quarters were locked tight and no sound came from behind them. The mages were sleeping or listening quietly. They knew their place in the tower.

The trio reached the room where Lyna lay and Rogar slammed his shoulder up against the door.

***  
Lyna awoke to the slam of the door against the wall, as did most of the girls in her dorm. The girls leapt from their beds obediently and lined up at the ends of their beds, some shaking, others still half asleep and yawning. Lyna sat up blearily.

'Get up!' hissed the mage on her right 'They've come to take someone for their Harrowing I bet!'  
'Or they could be making someone Tranquil..' came a ghoulish whisper.  
'Imagine if they made that Amell girl Tranquil?'  
'That would just kill Cul-' 'Shut up all of you,' 'SHH!'

The girls continued to hiss and spit like vipers as Lyna dragged herself to the end of the bed. The claustrophobia of this place was starting to make her feel queasy.

Then she saw who the Templars were.

'Uh..' said Blaine, obviously unnerved by the reaction of the girls 'Lyna?' His eyes searched the opposite end of the room to where she stood. Garrett's face twisted with suppressed laughter behind Rogar, who looked at the ground in exasperation. He pointed at Lyna.

'You,' he yelled, the sound rebounding back at him inside his helmet 'Come.' He made a come-hither gesture and Lyna retrieved her branch and sidled up to them, shutting the door behind her.

'What you couldn't get a real staff?' Garrett huffed, snatching the branch. Lyna scowled at him, her weather-beaten face scrunching up. Blaine handed her the bow and quiver which she sighed gratefully at and shouldered them, stroking the bow's slender limbs.

A commotion at the end of the hallway distracted them. More Templars charged up at them.

Raising their weapons, they charged back.

***  
In the entrance hall of the Tower, Lairwulf dragged his axe lengthways through the skull of a hapless Templar recruit. Another tried to take him from behind and he span, with the body still on his weapon, knocking the man's legs out from under him. Dislodging the oversized axe he killed his attacker with a blow to the chest and charged an archer in the centre of the room. After messily separating his head from his shoulders, Lairwulf swung his axe up onto his shoulder and looked up at the ceiling.

The shouts and clashes of a fight rained down upon him and he smiled.

Dragging himself, one short step at a time, up the stairs towards the sounds, he smiled when he heard the mage's high, girlish voice. They had him.

He reached the top of the stairs and took in the sight before him.  
Lyna was firing arrows everywhere into a shining sea of Templars who charged onwards like men possessed, shaking off arrows and sword blows.  
Rogar stood in front of Garrett, swinging his sword in a wide arc that swept soldiers out of the way like dry leaves before wind.  
Garrett himself fired bolts of purple energy at the templars, his bare hands glowing between each shot.  
Blaine shot around the room, disappearing and reappearing behind soldiers, delivering fatal backstabs, like the sneaky thief he was.

Lairwulf couldn't help but compare him to his brother. He grinned and threw himself forward with a shout, distracting Blaine. Hacking at a templar who was almost on top of Blaine, he winked at Rogar who acknowledged him with a glare.

He supposed that was what he got for not following orders.

***  
Splattered with blood, the five of them looked at each other, out of breath and dripping with sweat.

'What are you even doing in here dwarf?' groaned Rogar, sheathing his greatsword and kicking a decapitated templar off of his foot 'You were told to stay outside.'

Lairwulf gave a derisive snort and pointed his axe at the gigantic Rogar. 'I killed the damned Templar guards. Don't get all high and mighty on me, you needed me, giant.' Rogar simply started walking downstairs.

'What if there's more of them? ' asked Lyna, to which Lairwulf responded with a burst of laughter. The laughing seemed to burst a nervous bubble in the room, causing Garrett to giggle nervously. Soon, even Rogar was laughing at Lyna's concern.

'After that display?' gasped Lairwulf, following Rogar towards the entrance 'I'm surprised they're not showing us the way out in fear.'

***  
They soon reached the road without any more interference, thanks to the lack of templars to stop them and Blaine's intuitive knowledge of stealth. Lyna almost tripped them up once by falling over a tree root in the near darkness. Despite her skill as a rogue, she was in no way stealthy.

It was a long time before anyone spoke after they had set camp for the night.

'Thanks,' Garrett said, his voice low as he sat with his back to the flames of their campfire 'For rescuing me. I mean... They were going to make me-' He choked, unable to say 'Tranquil'. He swallowed and looked down at his hands. Lairwulf clapped him on the shoulder and Rogar managed a smile. Blaine actually had tears in his eyes. Lyna remained where she was in a tall tree with slender limbs at the edge of the camp.

'Really sociable, that one, ain't she?' quipped Lairwulf. His answer was a well placed arrow next to his leg. He grunted and took another bite of the rabbit leg he was holding.

'I think she's keeping a look out.' replied Blaine, as Lyna swung down from the lowest branch of the tree.

'I was,' she said, picking up her quiver that she had dropped when she dropped out of the tree 'And a good thing too. There's someone heading this way, we should put the fire out.'

The silence after her words was broken by the sounds of footsteps crashing through the bracken.


	7. Chapter 7

As the crunching of twigs and leaves got louder in the dense forest around them, the little party of adventurers sprang into action. Lyna nocked an arrow almost automatically, the movement as fluid and natural as a river. Rogar kicked dirt over the fire which left their clearing in almost total darkness. The only illumination came from the pinpricks of fire that were the torches carried by whoever or whatever was approaching through the trees. Garrett and Blaine both stood, slightly crouched like jungle cats about to pounce while Lairwulf lazily reached for his huge battleaxe.

The group could hear voices now. It sounded like two or three men, their voices gruff and even slightly amused. Lairwulf hesitated with his hand open over the handle of his axe. Then, the light of the torches flooded the clearing suddenly, causing the party to squint in the brightness, unable to make out the shadowy figures of the men who had entered their camp.

'Y'know,' came a gruff voice 'If you really wanted to avoid us you would have made yourselves harder to find, little brother.' The shadowy shapes solidified. They were two dwarves, one dark skinned and bald, the firelight bouncing off of his shiny head and the other stout and blonde. It had been the blonde who had spoken and he was looking at Lairwulf who was scowling back.

'Svit.' grunted Lairwulf, using his axe to propel himself to his feet. He made no move to suggest that he was going to hug his brother or even shake his hand, let alone attack him for the intrusion. Lyna and Rogar lowered their weapons, Blaine and Garrett returned to normal. An uneasy silence spread among the group before Svit strode forwards. He walked with the casual grace of a man in charge and he was certainly in charge of his captive audience.

'Was told I wasn't to come and get you after all,' he said, torch held aloft 'But then I got a tip off. Some innkeeper. Says one of your lot-' Here he sneered insultingly 'Dropped our lot in the shit over a bit of a mass murder, just off Lake Calenhad.'

'Who is "our lot"?' asked Rogar, keeping his eyes trained on the dark skinned dwarf who paced the opposite way to Svit. There was a squeal of leather on leather as Blaine started to shake.

'The Orzammar branch of the Theives Guild.' whispered the slender Orlesian. Lyna turned and saw that Blaine had developed a pallor to rival the dead.

He looked almost sick.

With that thought a rush of guilt washed through her; she had rushed off on this mad quest without a second thought for her dying brother at home. But she couldn't go back as a wanted murderer. Could she?

Lost in her guilty thoughts, Lyna did not notice when the second dwarf rushed across the clearing like the wind and pinned Blaine to the mossy ground. Shouts went up all over camp. Rogar ran for Svit, who pulled his own brother in front of himself as a human shield. Lairwulf attempted to bite Svit's hand and Garrett tried to knock the other dwarf off of Blaine with a spell but the bolt seemed to be absorbed into his strange black armour. Strands of lyrium shone in the black metal for a second and the dwarf grinned up at the mage, one thick hand clamped around Blaine's skinny neck.

The action came to a standstill.

'Now,' said Svit, still hiding behind his brother 'We were planning on only taking the tricky Orlesian, but after that little display with the mage I think we'd better take the lot of you.' Lairwulf scoffed.

'And why would you drag us back to Orzammar if you wanted to kill us, Svit?' he said, still scowling. There was a grunt as the black dwarf dragged Blaine upright by his arm. Although Blaine towered over the dwarf he made no attempt to get away as the dwarf reached out one stout arm and dragged Lyna towards him. She kicked out and spat at him but was soon silenced as he twisted her arm behind her and forced her into a crouching position with a whimper of pain.

'Boss'll like her,' smirked Svit's friend 'We ought to get going.' Svit nodded and shoved his brother in front of him.

'We'll be taking you to the Thieves Guild. You'd be smart not to try and run, dusters.'

As they started their walk the sound of hundreds of bowstrings being pulled taut filled the forest around them.

***  
The frigid air of the Frostback Mountains seemed to cut the flesh of the party to the bone. The dwarves were hardier than most and Lyna and Rogar had lived their entire lives outside, so the freezing wind did not affect them as it did Garrett and Blaine, who both shuddered and slipped on the icy ground. The huge iron doors that led to Orzammar loomed, grey and imposing, through the mist. The guard at the door gave the Guild members a distrustful look and seemed almost fascinated with their quarry but allowed them to march the party into the underground city. Lairwulf looked up as the Stone closed up above him for the first time in many years.

He had hated being pigeon-holed into the warrior caste. He hated bowing to the stuffed-shirt nobles and having his whole life recorded in the Shaperate. He longed to see the sky, and so he left his brother behind despite his guaranteed position in the Thieves Guild. Svit was the boss' right hand man, meaning that Lairwulf could have been his left. But he was a surface dwarf now, lower than any flea-bitten, nug-humping, body-selling dwarf from Dust Town.

Which, incidentally, was where they were heading.

***  
Lyna, Garrett and Blaine all gagged as the stench of Dust Town filled their lungs. Descending the makeshift steps into the shanty town, the wind from deep tunnels rushed towards them carrying the scent of waste and decay that seemed to punch them in the throat and drag the air upwards in a retch. Around them the distrustful eyes of those branded casteless followed them. Despite the ban, some of the casteless carried weapons and a few carried themselves with the uncanny grace that Svit possessed: the best rogues that Dust Town had to offer. The Thieves Guild. Svit was a prominent member of the guild, being the only warrior caste member. He was one of the few members who had seen their leader in person.

The group were shoved forwards into Dust Town by Svit, who brought up the rear of the crowd now, his companion leading them. They approached an inconspicuous door. The dwarf in the lead knocked six times, paused, and then knocked another four. The door opened as if magically, with nobody there. The party was led inwards and shepherded to a darkened room off of the main entrance way. They gathered as far away from the door as possible, as though of a shared mind. Svit clapped his hands together once, startling Blaine, who had been looking progressively more worried since the Frostback pass.

'Well, as you can see we've brought you to our headquarters,' he said darkly 'You know exactly where it is and how to get in, which means we're either choosing to trust you or we're going to kill you.' Rogar, who was pressed up against Blaine in the cramped space, felt the tiny Orlesian shiver and steadied him with a large hand on the shoulder. Svit continued: 'I'm not going to decide your fate. We're leaving that up to our leader. His name is Dagger, obviously an assumed name.' He added quickly 'We wouldn't want his clan to find him after all this. Believe me, the name fits. He could cut you in the right place so fast and you wouldn't know it until you were bled out on the floor.' He snapped his large, square fingers and two squat guards in striped armour appeared behind him as though from thin air. Another snap of the fingers and the shadowy guards had seized Blaine and Garrett.

'The mage is for insurance,' explained Svit 'The rest of you will remain here.' He turned to the mage and the theif. 'Now, MOVE.'

***  
Garrett and Blaine were led out into the hallway and up a wide flight of stairs. What waited at the top was unexpected. Plush couches lined the walls of a gilded hallway. The stench of Dust Town was covered by a heady, intoxicating perfume. Glossy wooden doors were shut tight, concealing what lay behind them and sounds of pleasure oozed beneath them into the scented air. Lilting music wafted towards them from some unknown source. The combination of all of these things left the pair of them giddy and smiling lazily. Svit chuckled.

'We have to finance the Guild somehow,' he said with a wicked smile, so like his brother's 'And sex sells.'

Through an open door Garrett spied an assortment of whips hung above a wooden bench adorned with cuffs and recoiled, flashing back to his almost tranquillisation. Blaine simply forced a weak but reassuring smile. Such objects were commonplace among nobility in Orlais.

The end of the hallway was home to a huge double door of black wood edged with gold. Musical hums and groans could be heard from within. Svit repeated the knock from the front door and shoved the door open.

Blaine's first thought was 'bed', and rightly so, for the room was dominated by a huge plush bed hung with heavy curtains and covered in shiny sheets. Two women gazed back at the party and then leapt out of the bed. One, a redheaded dwarf in a filmy pink negligee looked embarrassed and held a sheet over herself, the other a golden-skinned human stood proud and naked on the other side of the bed.

'Ladies,' came a voice, tinged with the classiness of nobility 'You may leave. Thank you for your service.' The girls bowed hastily to the figure on the bed and turned to leave, the dwarf hurriedly and the human languidly, her eyes lingering on Garrett long enough to make him blush.

Svit motioned for the guards to leave behind the girls then bent on one knee at the foot of the bed.

'The thief, as requested, my lord,' he said deeply 'The mage is.. insurance. To make sure the others do not leave.' Behind the curtains, a figure shifted and then a torso appeared in the gap between the curtains. Chiselled muscles and a sloped jaw, green eyes that flickered with mischief, tons of brown hair and long, pointed ears. Dagger was an elf.

'Thank you Svit,' he said in his lilting accent 'You may go too, I wish to speak with the mage and the man alone.' Svit made to protest, but Dagger silenced him with the raising of one long-fingered hand.

'So tell me,' smirked the leader of the infamous Thieves Guild, leaning back on his many overstuffed pillows 'Where is that elf girl of yours?'

***  
Downstairs, Lyna, Rogar and Lairwulf sat with their backs against the wall. Grateful that they had been allowed to keep their weapons, they seemed oddly at peace with the situation. Lairwulf produced a pack of cards and they played a complicated dwarven game, or attempted to before Rogar shoved the dwarf's face into the wall so hard from frustration that it dislodged a brick.

A guard entered the room silently, the brand on her face seeming to glow slightly in the half light. She pointed at Lyna mutely and made a come-hither gesture with her outstretched middle finger, as the index was missing.

Lyna shrugged and uncurled herself gracefully from the floor. The guard grinned and led her away.

Lairwulf dealt some more cards and looked up at Rogar.

'So, I told you why I left here,' he said almost dismissively 'Wanna tell me what you were doing in that washed up town? Shouldn't you be with a tribe or something?' Rogar looked at his cards for a long, tense moment before speaking.

'You, I trust with this story,' he said, his tone grave 'My tribe was murdered. Brutally.' The silence that followed his words was pregnant with unspoken sympathies and for that he was grateful. Too many people had expressed their sorrow to him despite not experiencing it, not cradling their loved ones close as the life dripped from them, watching their wives be flayed and watched the blonde hair of their sons be dyed scarlet with their own blood.

'A lord, from a town like West Hill,' Rogar continued, sensing the curiosity of the dwarf and not resenting it for once 'He wanted to buy our service in battle. For our size, we are a peaceful people. We are not mercenaries. He threatened to have our mages turned to the templars for blood magic, our women and children sold as slaves. We asked him to leave and he did, but returned later in a blind, drunken rage with a company of soldiers. We are - were - farmers, smiths and merchants. We did not stand a chance.' He threw his cards down, signalling a losing hand.

'I held my wife as she died. Few of us were spared,' he swallowed and wiped his lips 'I wish I had not been.'

Lairwulf said nothing and dealt another hand.

***  
Lyna was led into the plush bedroom, the heady incense scent stifling her thoughts. Garrett was inside, perusing a bookshelf of what seemed to be erotica in the corner - 50 Shades of Grey Warden was there, an awful fluff piece that a young elf in her clan had pilfered from a nearby village once. When he noticed her he bowed his head and left quickly.

A thin dwarven woman took Mirabelle and the quiver, startling Lyna, but the incense left her dazed, and she watched as her bow was stashed in a corner before the woman followed Garrett out of the door. She turned again.

Before her stood another elf, shirtless and light-skinned, his brown hair cut short in the sides and long in the middle. He sat on the edge of the bed, between curtains and he was smiling at her. She smiled back, her brain addled. She attempted to shake herself awake, begging herself to have a little respect. He introduced himself as Dagger. Ah, the master of the Guild. She attempted the shake again, succeeding in only stumbling towards him. She cursed herself inwardly.  
But who was she to deny herself such a simple pleasure as a good looking man? She knew that she was past marrying age back in the clan and that her clumsiness and temper would result in some pretty messed up kids if she did - but she did not have to worry about that here.  
She just wanted to talk.  
But Dagger was a master at this game; throw in a 'fascinating' here, a 'beautiful' there, a light brush of fingers against the collarbone and voila - she was his.

***  
Garrett had been led to a sumptuous sitting room. He was soon joined by Rogar and Lairwulf, both of whom seemed sobered somehow. He did not pry however, as the room was filled with whores chatting amongst themselves and he was too embarrassed to even sneeze. Lairwulf chuckled at the mage's red face.

'Cheer up Twinkle Toes,' he guffawed, swinging his feet up to rest on an end table 'I grew up around this kinda stuff. Pull up a whore, have a good time. How about that one?' He pointed one chubby finger towards a woman in the corner. Garrett shook his head, but Lairwulf caught the mage eyeing up a scantily clad man towards the back of the room. He nudged Rogar to point this out to him and they both stared at Garrett, wide-eyed. Simultaneously, they took a deep gulp from the tankards they had been provided upon entering the room.

'Well,' said Rogar in a low voice 'Who'd have known?'

***  
The night had passed in drunken revelry before anybody noticed that Blaine had basically vanished.

***  
Lyna awoke with an unfamiliar breath on the back of her neck. She sat up, startled, reaching reflexively for her bow which was still out of reach or her knives which were on her belt, which was with her clothes, which were on the floor. She remembered the night and how it had passed. She gazed momentarily at her sleeping partner before dressing quietly and slipping from the room.

She found her male friends in the sitting room she vaguely remembered passing. They wolf-whistled as she walked in and she scowled at them, but rejoiced silently on the inside.

Lairwulf eyed her up and down and simply said 'Your lacing's crooked.' before standing and stretching as though not hungover at all. He looked around then back at the elf.

'Seen that Orlesian ass this morning?' he asked, trying to inconspicuously sniff his own armpit. He recoiled when he managed it. Lyna shook her head and nudged Garrett awake. He was smiling in his sleep. Lyna wondered what he was dreaming of, until he practically growled at her. She knew the mage still didn't trust her, but she did risk being killed by the Templars for him, he could at least show a little gratitude... Even if he did still think she killed that guy.

A soft cough alerted them that Svit had appeared behind them. Lairwulf belched loudly.

'Charming,' said his brother dryly from the doorway 'I assume you all had a pleasant evening?' Rogar and Lairwulf smirked at Lyna as Dagger passed by the doorway with a wink, almost on cue. She stomped on Lairwulf's foot with a sweet smile to Svit. She liked the brothers, for all their faults.

'Before you leave, we must ask one more thing of you. We are aware that you are currently on a quest but we must ask you to take on another as, ah, compensation for what your companion did to sully our reputation.'

'What did happen to Blaine in the end?' asked Rogar, stretching his long limbs. Svit put his hands on his hips, a powerful stance.

'He is being dealt with,' he answered cryptically, the look on his face enough of a warning to prevent them asking more 'We are sending you to the village of Redcliffe. It is little over two days from here if you leave this morning. Our contact will tell you more once you arrive. He will be in the village for a week, any longer and he leaves and you are wanted by the Guild for as long as you live.'

This grim sentence hung over the remaining adventurer's heads like a sword on a wire, only that wire happened to be on fire.

'His name is Horace. He'll find you, don't worry. You may have your pick of anything in our armoury as thanks for this.' With that, Svit turned on his heel and left, without so much as a goodbye even to his brother.

'He always was a nug humping idiot,' groaned Lairwulf 'But I always seem to listen to him.'

***  
Equipped with the best armour they could use from the Guild armoury, Lyna, Rogar, Garrett and Lairwulf left Orzammar. The party seemed to have lost a lot more than just Blaine; his jokes and general cheerfulness and-

'That little bastard stole my coinpurse!' Lyna squealed. Garrett was about to suggest that it might have been her partner from the previous night but Lairwulf announced that his was missing too and when Rogar shook his coinpurse upside down all that fell out was dust.

They stood still for a moment, considering going back, but they knew they had to keep walking.

'By the Dread Wolf, I swear,' growled Lyna, hitching her quiver higher on her shoulder 'If we ever see him again I get to skin him alive.'

The men were too scared to argue back.


	8. Chapter 8

The grey, flat waters of Lake Calenhad had started to show hints of palest blue as the party drew closer and closer to their destination. A few tiny, lone fishing boats were bobbing on the water, the bearded fisherman that they carried looking curiously at the band of adventurers that passed by their lake. A few waved and called things that were drowned under the sound of seabirds wheeling overhead. Lyna and Garrett drank in the salty smell of the lake's air; she had lived in forests her whole life and he had been locked inside. They had never seen something as magnificent as Lake Calenhad shining in the sunlight.

Lairwulf was looking at his gloves in confusion.  
'These ain't dwarven, I tell ya,' he said, tugging on the leather and steel 'Too... Shiny. Too tough. Too.. Not.. Dwarven.' Lyna scoffed and muttered something about eloquence under her breath while Rogar flipped a small label out of the back of Lairwulf's armour.  
'You're right,' he said, his voice rumbling low under the calls of the birds 'Some bloke named Wade. From Denerim.' They walked under an uneasy silence for a while longer, before Lyna voiced exactly what the others were thinking.  
'So, what do you think they did to Blaine?' she said, looking wide-eyed at Lairwulf. Then her expression hardened and she turned her vision to the front. 'Not that I care. Thieving little sh-'  
'They probably killed him,' Lairwulf cut in 'Like my brother said, we know where they are and how to get in and he dropped them in it with Gwaren.' He shrugged. Nobody wanted to show it, after the stolen money and the Spoiled Princess, but the thought of Blaine being tortured and killed by a group of mercenary dwarves hung heavy over their heads. They hoped that whatever they could achieve on their unknown quest in Redcliffe brought closure, or even answers.

Even as they thought it, the impressive stone facade of Castle Redcliffe loomed up at them from over the hills. It was shrouded in spray and mist from the lake and even from there they could hear the faint sounds of the town. The sails of the Redcliffe windmill swooshed past every so often, rippling the mist.

The party shared looks with one another. Then, still wrapped in their uneasy silence, they headed down into the village of Redcliffe.

***  
The contrast with the heavily policed West Hill was astonishing.  
Skinny, dark haired children ran in circles, playing a game too complicated for the party to follow. Men and women alike bathed in the now bright blue lake in the sunshine, skin and hair glistening with shining droplets. Fishermen hauled the first catches of the day up the slope to the village proper, some singing in low, harmonious voices together, in a way that made the very air of Redcliffe hum with life and fire.

The place reminded Garrett of his life before the Circle, at his father's home in Highever. As he watched a bearded man swing his son above his head he remembered how his own father had fallen to his knees and wept as Garrett was taken by the templars at the meagre age of nine, after going to pet the neighbour's cat and electrocuting it instead. He shook his head.  
Such thoughts did not match the jolly air of the town.

The doors of the Chantry were thrown wide, tempting in a non-existent breeze. The sun bounced off of the stained glass windows of the building. They showed Disciple Havard carrying Andraste's ashes up a mountainside. Garrett smiled. He knew he was the only Andrastian in his little group, but while Rogar and Lairwulf did not disgust him, he found Lyna's Elvish belief a little too barbaric. He could not imagine so many gods in one place. As he gazed at the Chantry a stout man with an impressively bushy moustache on his face and a weathered crossbow across his back swaggered out of the Chantry. He stretched in the sunlight, cracking joints and bending muscles. His face lit up when he saw the group standing by the Chantry steps.

'Wahey!' he cried, barrelling forwards and knocking two children out of the way 'You must be the lads Svit told me about,' He pumped the men's hands enthusiastically but paused when he got to Lyna.  
'Oh-HO!' he cried again, seeming to only get louder 'Lads and lasses I see!' He bent low and kissed her hand, leaving her confused. Lyna did not understand why everyone seemed to like all this touching. The man screwed up his nose and looked up at her from his bowed position. 'You've got the stench of the boss all over ya, lass.' Lyna snatched her hand back and Lairwulf spluttered hopelessly with laughter. The man was speaking again.  
'Name's Horace,' he introduced himself 'Hired mercenary and all around nice person, generally. I'm the Guild's Redcliffe liason. You'll be carrying out a pesky little job, almost pointless really, but the Guild'll pay you good and you sound pretty capable.' Here, he stretched again, with disturbing cracking noises coming from all his joints. He pointed at Garrett.  
'Me an' you are gonna research what it is you'll be collecting this evening,' he said, beckoning the mage 'I figure it's safe for you to know now, cause you won't be going on the pick up.' Garrett made to protest but the steely look that Horace gave him made him shut his mouth and meekly walk to the barrel-chested man's side. Horace waved his arms wide, accidentally knocking the wind out of Garrett who was standing too close, making him fall to the ground with a vaguely camp 'oof!'.  
'The rest of the day is yours!' he said with a grin 'After sundown, meet me at my place. My son'll let you in.' He dragged Garrett away with him.

***  
Lyna elected that they try and bathe now that they could; they had been on the road for almost two weeks and they stank. Lairwulf suggested that she was self concious about the 'smelling like the boss' comment and she stamped on his foot again. He guffawed and limped to the waters edge with Lyna and Rogar. The other townspeople gave them a wide berth as they began to strip off their damp cloaks and armour.  
Rogar waded in first, scaring a few women out of the water entirely.  
Lairwulf was down to his smallclothes when he decided to shove Lyna into the water. She shrieked loudly, almost so shrill that only bats would be able to hear her and smacked the water with enough force to soak the dwarf who remained on the shore. She scowled up at him with her black hair hanging in her chestnut coloured eyes.  
He made sure to keep out of her way in the water, lest she drown him.

The three of them floated on the clear lakewater, staring up at the wide sky. It was the first break they had had and they had no idea what to say.  
'So,' said Rogar, finally, watching the sky turn pink as the day wore on 'Lyna. Did you kill that guy?' She shook her head no, displacing a pond weed.  
'I got to that town about five minutes before they accused me of it,' she said 'Wasn't my knife. Human made. Mine's Elvish.' Rogar nodded, satisfied.  
'Weather's always been a sleazy bastard,' he said, but did not elaborate.  
The red and pink of dusk had chased all the blue from the sky at this point, heralding the night to come. Lanterns began to flicker on in the windows of Redcliffe. They clambered out of the lake and began to tug their armour back on, the leather snagging on damp, puckered skin, the ink of extensive tattoos blurring in the waterlogged folds.  
They walked, cold and barefoot to Horace's house.

***  
Garrett pored over the minute text of a heavy, leather bound tome on the table in front of him. The candlelight flickered as a door was opened and closed somewhere in the house.  
'This object,' he said, turning a page carefully 'It seems magnificent.' Horace huffed, the smoke from his pipe surrounding his head.  
'Dangerous s'more like it, Gare,' he said, showing the mage a picture of it 'Causes spirit damage when you touch it. Unless-' His last words were cut off as his son, a skinnier, teenaged version of himself, ushered in the elf, the giant and the dwarf. He snapped his book shut.  
'Greetings!' he boomed, spreading his arms wide in welcome 'Welcome to my house. Thanks, kid,' he added to dismiss his son. With a surly sneer, the kid left. 'So, this quest. It's a little dangerous, you could say..'  
Garrett gave a cruel laugh.  
'A little dangerous?' he scoffed 'Try basically a suicide mission.' He took a deep glug from the glass in front of him. Rogar noticed that his cheeks were flushed - drunk.  
Horace shot him a sideways look.  
'Anyway,' he continued, moving a bottle further away from Garrett 'You'll be recovering something for the Guild, a little known artefact. It's called the Rose of Amethyst, pretty little thing, delicate as hell.' He stretched again.  
'What's the catch?' demanded Lairwulf, who had been uncharacteristically quiet of late.  
Garrett drained his glass before he spoke.  
'The sodding thing is in -hic!- Castle Redcliffe,' he explained groggily 'In the arlessa's private sodding bed chamber.' He shook his glass upside down in confusion. The sober party members were stunned.  
'He's kidding right?' Lyna asked, indicating the dunk mage 'Please tell me he's kidding?' Horace looked sheepish.  
'Great!' she exclaimed, throwing her hands up 'Fantastic!' She kicked the table leg and then sat down on the chair opposite Garrett.  
'What's the plan?'

***  
Rogar, Lairwulf, Horace and Lyna crouched in the darkened gardens of Castle Redcliffe, concealing themselves in shrubbery that grew along the low back building of the castle, wherein the arlessa's bedchambers lay. They were lucky; Isolde preferred to sleep on the lower floors, meaning that they only needed to get into the windows right above them instead of those on the second or third floors.  
The night was hot and an unwary arlessa had left her bedroom window open. The gap was small, however and nobody could wriggle through it except -  
'You're kidding this time, right?' asked Lyna, her voice fraught with worry. Horace shook his head.  
''Fraid not.' Was his short reply. He looked up at the window. 'We're gonna have to shove you through there and then sneak in. You'll have to let us in, door's probably locked.' Lyna swallowed loudly. Then she stuck one slender arm out to Rogar on her left.  
'You're gonna have to do it.'

Rogar took her arm and easily swung the skinny elf onto his shoulders. A combination of being an elf, running everywhere and never having enough to eat, Lyna was slight and small and he barely noticed when she planted her feet uneasily on his shoulders.  
Gracefulness was not her strong point.  
She scrambled for a hold on the window ledge and hung there for a moment, kicking her legs frantically, until the momentum shuffled her up the wall. She grazed her arms on the rough grey stone but she made it to the window.  
Lyna edged past the glass - an obvious sign of wealth - and managed to tumble directly onto the floor of the arlessa's bedchamber. Mercifully, the room was dark and empty.  
Praising the gods, she stood and dusted herself off, beginning her search for the key.

***  
Downstairs, Horace led his team into the darkened kitchens. Crossbow held aloft, he scanned the room and then beckoned them forwards with an imperious hand. Silently they made their way towards the servant's stairs... when a crunching noise pervaded the air.  
'What?' asked Lairwulf through a mouthful of some cold leftovers 'I haven't eaten in at least an hour.' Horace scowled at him while Rogar offered an amused and vaguely affectionate smirk. They edged their way slowly up the stairs, but encountered no guards.

At the top of the bare staircase Horace peered around the corner and then slammed the curious dwarf against the wall.  
'Guard.' he whispered, putting a finger to Lairwulf's lips to stop his outcry. The air around Horace seemed to ripple for a moment and he vanished before their eyes.  
Rogar was astonished and Lairwulf acted as though this was commonplace; in fact, Svit used to use his stealth skills to jump out at him in the middle of the night, but Rogar did not know that.

The next think they knew the guard was out cold. Horace reappeared, his fingers pinched around a small part of the guard's exposed throat.  
'Pressure point,' he grunted 'Never gets old.'

The dwarf and the giant came out from their hiding place, just as another guard rounded the corner. It seemed their luck had run out for the night.

Lairwulf raised his battleaxe.

'Here we go.'

***  
Around the corner, at the end of the hallway where the guard and his assailants were unseen and unheard, Lyna heard a sound that made her blood run cold.

A key in the lock.

Stunned into complete stillness for a moment, Lyna leapt into the opulent wardrobe with barely a second to spare. Through the crack between the doors she watched as none other than Isolde herself entered. The arlessa was humming to herself, removing her jewels and placing them in a cabinet. In that cabinet shone something magnificent and violently purple - the Rose. Lyna gasped when she saw the delicate flower, carved from a single shockingly purple stone.

She could see why the Guild would want it. She was so distracted that she didn't notice a now half-undressed Isolde moving towards the wardrobe.

Light flooded in as the door was flung wide.

The two women stared at each other for a few long, tense seconds.

'Er..' Lyna stuttered, forcing an awful faked smile 'Housekeeping?' The arlessa blinked twice, long, slow, stunned blinks.

And then she opened her mouth to scream.

Lyna sprung at her, propelled by her strong legs against the solid wardrobe floor. The two women tumbled over, cutting off Isolde's scream as she slapped at her intruder, squealing like a stuck Orlesian pig.

'Shhh!' Lyna pleaded, pinning the bigger woman beneath her and clamping a hand over her mouth. She was at a loss for what to do. For one thing, Isolde was nobility. For another, she was half dressed. For yet another, Lyna needed that Rose.

So she slammed Isolde's head against the floor.

The noblewoman was out cold straight away. Lyna thought she might have just fainted. She rolled off of her and then swished the blanket from the bed over her for modesty; another human trait that she didn't understand.

Stealing the key from the lock, she made sure that nobody was alerted by the noise and briefly heard a commotion down the hallway. Shaking her head, but smiling, Lyna turned and seized the Rose.

It was stunningly shiny, and seemed to glow from within with a nebulous, wraith-like form encased in the flowering petals. Sparks of purple energy travelled up and down it's length, almost like the magic wielded by Garrett.

A clang of metal on metal in the distance awakened her from her reverie, and she ran towards it's source, Rose (and two rings, a necklace and an anklet) in hand.

***  
The guard stumbled backwards, somehow still standing despite being riddled with crossbow bolts and bleeding from two axe-wounds and a stab wound. He raised his sword and shield over and over again.

Now, he had Horace pinned up against the wall. Rogar swung his greatsword just as Lairwulf heaved his axe and the two weapons cut cleanly across the guard. This time, when the guard stumbled backwards the wounds split wider as he did, leaving him looking as though a huge animal had gouged out half of his torso.

The guard gagged, sending a spray of blood up into the air and then fell to his knees. Horace spat on him and then punched a crossbow bolt between his eyes. The guard fell into a sticky puddle of blood; both his blood and that of his attackers.

Out of breath, the three men grinned at their handiwork and looked up in time to see Lyna rounding the corner.

'Shit!' cursed Horace 'Put dow- wait, how are you holding the Rose?' Lyna looked at him confused.

'With my hand,' she said, eyebrows raised quizzically 'Listen, one of you take it, I need two hands to shoot.' She tossed the artefact and Lairwulf caught it on instinct.

He promptly dropped it as a wave of spirit energy coursed up his arm. He let out a pained choking noise and dropped to his knees heavily. Now Rogar and Lyna both looked confused, but she waved to attract their attention.

'Listen we gotta go, now,' she said 'I may or may not have just knocked out the arlessa.' Horace was stunned. First he went white, then red, then violently puce in the face.

'GREAT,' he bellowed 'LAIRWULF, I am NEVER forgiving your brother.' He snatched up the Rose; it did not affect him the way it made the dwarf collapse. Lairwulf climbed shakily to his feet.

A high, lilting, disoriented voice came from down the hallway: 'Eamon..? Eamon?'

Isolde was awake.

'Damn it,' grunted Rogar, swinging his sword down to his side 'What now?'

'Well, no use going quietly now,' said Horace, stretching yet again 'It's gonna be a long night yet, lads.'


	9. Chapter 9

Horace pocketed the Rose of Amethyst. Lairwulf was rubbing his legs, still shaking from the bolt of spirit energy that had knocked him to the ground. Rogar offered a burly arm, which the dwarf gratefully accepted. At the end of the short hallway Lyna anxiously bounced from foot to foot, watching for any approaching guards.

'We could go out her window?' she suggested, bristling with anxiety 'It wouldn't be quiet, and we could at least knock her out again?' Everyone looked at Horace who shrugged, not at all phased by their choice as him as leader. All at once he slipped back under his cover of darkness and Lyna felt his shadow form brush past her.

'Clear,' came a whisper from the darkness outside of Isolde's room, along with a ripple in the air that might have been an encouraging hand wave. Lyna flicked her head towards him as a gesture to Lairwulf and Rogar, who shuffled along the hall with weapons drawn and ready.

When they got to Isolde's room she was gone from where Lyna had left her.

CLANG.

***  
Lairwulf saw stars for only a moment before he realised that he was on the floor for the second time that night. He was aware of a scuffle, a muffled screech and a thud as someone was thrown against the wall and held there. He heard Lyna pull Mirabelle's bowstring taut and the low click of Horace hefting his crossbow. Lairwulf raised his head.

Rogar had Isolde pinned against the wall. The arlessa had a heavy looking brass statuette gripped firmly in her hand. Her face was covered in fresh, starlingly scarlet blood that flowed freely from her nose. Rogar had elbowed her in the face. Lairwulf was surprised that Horace was not horrified by this.

That was when he noticed the ringing.

Lairwulf thought that it was a side effect of being whacked across the head with a brass holy symbol but he watched Lyna shake her head as though dispelling water from her ears and Horace lowered his heavy crossbow to twist a stout finger in his ear.

***  
Rogar increased the pressure on Isolde's throat. She spluttered satisfyingly and her eyes bulged outwards.

'What is that ringing?' he demanded, his face screwed up into a grimace of pain. Isolde spluttered again but forced a strained smile. She looked down at her free hand. Rogar's eyes followed hers.

A thin, yellowed cord was wrapped around her finger, and she tugged weakly on it. The ringing began anew.

'She's pulled the alarm,' growled the hulking Rogar 'Everyone out. Now.' He pulled back his left arm and slammed his fist across her temple. She spat out a mouthful of blood and crumpled against his restraining arm. The blood clotted in her loose hair.

Rogar stared. The blood dripped from the arlessa's flaming locks. Her hair was the same colour as hers - as his wife's. For one, long, dreadful moment he was holding his wife again as her life drained into the snow around them and the gleeful shouts of her assailants were carried on the breeze. Rogar..

Rogar..

***  
'Rogar!' Horace called insistently from the window. He had one leg outside, straddling the windowsill. Lyna and Lairwulf had already dropped back into the shrubbery below. Rogar looked up, still dazed. He looked around as two guards jogged up to the doorway. He crossed quickly to the window and faced them.

Cowed by his size, they stopped, unsure of how to act.

Rogar smiled at them and fell backwards, taking the window with him.

***  
Lyna, Horace and Lairwulf scattered as the enormous figure of their other warrior fell to the ground. Despite the drop he landed heavily on his feet instead of crumpling into a heap of bones and flesh. He straightened up stiffly, briefly checked his weapon and nodded to Horace.

Horace led the way, down a side path that lead through a vegetable garden. Huge, black crows hopped among the growing food, pecking and cawing. As they passed the birds spread their great wings and soared upwards with a great flapping noise, calling as thy went and mingled with the seabirds. They froze.

'Down there!'

The shout of a silver-clad guard on the balcony of Redcliffe castle was like a death sentence. Hearts pounded and eyes widened as every member of the group reached the same conclusion. They broke into a run.

Swift and strong, Rogar led the way and heard a shout come up from the alcove to their left before anybody else did.

Then the world exploded into a blazing inferno of light.

***  
The captain who was in charge of the catapults was surprised at the swiftness of his men. They had been woken in the middle of the night by the alarm and immediately sent to man the catapults outside, which had worked perfectly. He held his arm up and then swished it downwards sharply.

A deadly ball of fire streaked across the sky and crashed down into the distant crowd of figures that passed before them. The people were scattered and a guttural scream emanated from their area.

He smiled grimly and raised his arm again.

***  
Horace and Lyna found themselves almost next to each other. The roaring of the flames seemed to fill their entire heads and blood flowed freely into Lyna's eyes, almost blinding her. The coppery stickiness of it clouded her senses and she clawed for the shadowy shapes reaching for her.  
The shapes were Horace's hands and he dragged her upright. He swiped a hand across he eyes, wiping away most of the blood. He checked Mirabelle: the bow was fine. Lyna had landed on her front. She noticed he was favouring his left arm; it was broken and bent almost backwards. She leaned on him and they shuffled onward, under the clouds of cloying black smoke.

Lairwulf sat upright. He had dropped to his front when he saw the flames coming, arms thrown over his head. He tentatively checked himself over as a third and then a fourth ball of flames whizzed overhead, colliding with the far wall and collapsing part of it. A garbled cry of pain erupted after the last fireball and the dwarf uncurled himself and jogged low to the ground to the source of the agonising cry.

***  
Rogar bucked against the pain. He tried kicking his legs to drum his heels but only the right leg moved and he let out another scream instead. He knew that all he was doing was drawing attention to himself but a darker voice within him called out to let them end it, let the pain stop, let him see his wife and boys again.

He slammed his head against the paved path beneath him and screamed so hard that he expected his heart to wrench itself free and break.

***  
When Lairwulf reached the source of the screaming he almost recoiled.

Rogar's left leg was mangled and crushed beneath a huge grey stone that had been knocked from the wall. Fire raged all around and dark red - almost black - blood crept in between the flagstones from his crushed leg.

After only a moment's hesitation Lairwulf threw himself down, pushing all his weight against the jagged rock. His feet scrambled for purchase on the slick, blood soaked stones as he shoved. Rogar's cries seemed to almost become sobs as he shoved. Bones crunched loudly under the stone and Rogar's huge fists pounded the cobbles as he bellowed.

***

Horace and Lyna dragged themselves through the mist towards the direction where the fireballs had come from. She nodded weakly at him; blood had made the front of her leather armour slick and she was struggling to keep hold of him.

Narrowing her black eyes, she pulled her slender longbow from her back and fell to one knee. Sticking the point of her tongue between her teeth she squinted one eye almost shut and fired a single arrow.

A great grinding of gears erupted through the smoke, followed by an outcry from the soldiers there. Horace pulled Lyna back upright and they half-limped, half-ran through the fog with grim determination.

The soldiers were swarming about the broken catapult, leaving the second one blissfully unguarded. Lyna loosed three more arrows, felling two soldiers and wounding a third before they noticed and charged the pair.

Painfully and one-armed, Horace fired a series of bolts with a deafening crack each time, which would have been painful if Lyna's ears were not still shrivelled by the explosions. Soldiers fell left and right. One succeeded in grabbing the slender elf when she could not hear him approach. She bit down on the hand that clamped over her mouth, drawing blood and Horace sank a bolt into the knee of her assailant.

One of the few remaining soldiers swung his sword at Horace. But Horace was too quick for him. He seized the arm that held the sword and, with fury in his eyes, dragged the man towards the catapult with his good arm.

The heat of the flaming fuel on the flame-thrower singed his eyes and cheeks and still Horace dragged the soldier on as more fell around him to the lighting fast arrows that Lyna mastered. Horace could see the gears of the machine now and he thrust the man in front of him.

The man's sword arm was swallowed in the grinding gears as the fireball was launched, the mooring ropes singed away. His deafening cry rent the air and Horace collapsed, his knees finally giving out underneath him.

Lyna, like an avenging angel, swooped out of the smoke in her ungainly way and hefted him upright, almost carrying him.

Speaking words of comfort, she dragged him away. That was when her tears finally began to flow.

***  
The stone was gone but the leg was destroyed.

Rogar had finally passed out around the time one rough corner of the block remained on his leg. Lairwulf was grateful for this small mercy as he pressed moss from the stone and rags from his pack against the wound to staunch the blood. He would get Twinkle Toes to perform healing magic, but they would ave to get out. Soon.

Happy with his meagre application of a mediocre bandage, Lairwulf seized the thick, hairy arm of Rogar and began the slow, painful process of dragging the unconscious Avvar beyond Redcliffe.

***  
Back in the village of Redcliffe itself, Garrett watched with a pounding head as the sun rose and illuminated the black smoke as though even the choking clouds were in flames.

He knew it could only have something to do with the elf. And the others.

'Kid,' he mumbled, poking Horace's son with the end of his new staff 'Hey, kid.' The teenager grumbled and shuffled in the seat where he had slept, restless, waiting for his father.

'We're clearing out.' The teenager made a non-committal grunting noise and returned to his slumber.

Garrett shook his head. He would never understand his disdain for authority.

Then, focusing all the magical energy he had at his disposal, he fired a vision into the heads of his companions.

It was short and succinct and clear; an image of a fork in a river and one word.

'Here.'

***  
Simultaneously, the four of them clutched their heads in pain and confusion.

Rogar had awoken and was attempting to drag himself along using a crutch he had fashioned from a charred branch. He collapsed once again as the vision rang around the heads of his friends.

Breathing heavily, he pulled himself back upwards by using Lairwulf's shoulder as leverage and instantly knew what he had to do. They seemed to be at a safe enough distance now.

He drew in a great breath and bellowed to the heavens:

'LYNA! HORACE!'

The sound reverberated off of the very air itself with the power of it, the two names repeating and repeating again, ringing in his ears. Lairwulf flinched.

Then, so small and weak that they were not sure whether it was her voice or the wind, Lyna called back.

'LAIRWULF! ROGAR! WE'RE COMing stay where you a-' and she was cut off by an unfortunate wind.

Rogar slowly lowered himself back to the ground.

'We may be making ourselves targets, dwarf,' he said in a quavering version of his usual gravelly voice 'But so are those who use us as such.'

***  
The sun was high in the sky as Garrett waited on a flat rock at the fork in the river. He had fled Redcliffe with his staff, his cloak and the book on the ancient artefact that had caused all this mess and now sat with his bare feet in the river. Waiting.

A clang of metal on stone alerted him to another's presence and he whipped around.

Rogar lay face down in the sandy soil at the water's edge, his greatsword abandoned on the stone. His leg was at all the wrong angles, coated in bloodied moss and festering rags.

'Andraste's flaming knicker weasels!' screeched Garrett, dropping all Chantry pretence and falling to Rogar's side, hands outstretched and glowing a comforting blue. He passed his hands back and forth over the crushed leg. The bones inside and outside creaked back into position, eliciting a series of sobs and groans from the almost unconscious Avvar.

Lyna fell to her knees and submerged her head beneath the rushing waters of the river. She emerged, seconds later, gasping and rubbing her ear. The water had washed away whatever was preventing her from hearing.

Horace sat next to Rogar, cradling his own broken arm, watching as Garrett magically stitched the wounds back together and sedated the poor bastard.

Lairwulf sat next to Lyna. He placed a large hand on her shoulder. She turned her sopping head and smiled weakly at him. His genuine, warm smile in return broke something inside of her and the tears once again slipped down her cheeks.

'Hey hey hey,' Lairwulf groaned, turning her to face him properly 'I can't stand to see anyone cry, let alone anyone bigger than me-' Here Lyna tried to force a laugh but succeeded only in hiccuping - 'What is it? Aside from the obvious.'

Lyna waved one arm at the party. The broken giant, the frustrated mage. The old man with the broken arm. Sent out to die for a crime that none of them knowingly committed.

'If- if Weathers hadn't blamed me for that murder,' she choked out, the terrified sobs racking her body 'None of us would be in this mess.' Lairwulf huffed sympathetically.

'Nonsense,' he said, softer than usual 'Templars'd still have got Twinkles. Rogar would still have attacked him in the end, even if it wasn't to defend a pretty girl.' He gripped her shoulders and looked up into her face. 'We all would've ended up in those cells. This is not your fault and you do not have to feel guilty, Lyna.'

Lyna choked on the lump in her throat and smiled back through her tears. 'You still never told us why you were arrested.'

Lairwulf smiled sheepishly and shrugged. 'I was sick on Weathers' shoes when he locked us up. You were pretty out of it.' Lyna started to giggle. It was like a nervous wildfire and soon even Garrett was chuckling.

'We should set up camp,' Horace said, finally 'It doesn't look like we're gonna be able to move mountain man.'

***  
The night was cold at the fork in the river. Spray from the river darted over the flat rock and caught those who stood too close like a knife. The tents were set up and the fire was out, but still only Horace and Garrett were sleeping.

Rogar was even awake now, having stomached a round of broth that had been cobbled together from nearby elfroot and mushrooms. He breathed in the cold air and smiled. Much more like home.

He listened to the still air and even allowed a welling of emotion in his stone heart. It was his job to remember, as the last of his clan.

Eventually, his keen eyes caught Lyna. She had sat bolt upright suddenly and her long, pointed ears were twitching. He listened too.

A song, low and harmonious, drifted on the air. It sounded complicated with many parts and all sung by different people. Men sang a rumbling bass, women a warbling tenor and he swore he could pick out the untrained, reedy voices of a few children. He stood, shakily, leaning still on his charred crutch and looked out towards the source of the voices.

Bright, silken cloths adorned with gold flapped in a breeze that did not reach him. Flashes of white beneath them. He realised that the cloths were sails.

.. Sails?

He nudged Garrett with his foot. The mage grumbled.

'Garrett,' he said quietly, concious of the sleeping Horace 'How close are we to the ocean? I thought it was on the other side of the Wilds?'

Garrett groaned impatiently. 'It is,' he moaned 'We're nowhere near the ocean.' Now Rogar was even more confused. Garrett began to snore again.

'But,' Rogar said eventually 'Boats?' Lyna stood up and shuffled over to him, the heavy bandages around her midriff hindering her movement. She hitched herself up onto the wet, flat rock and looked down into a valley below them.

She let out a deafening whoop.

'Those are sails, giant,' she said, with her first true grin in a few days 'But those aren't boats.'

She turned to him, gripping his shoulders to keep her balance on the rock.

'They're aravels.'


	10. Chapter 10

Lyna turned back to the scarlet fabric flapping in the distant breeze and whooped again, one arm wrapped around her middle where she was still wounded. Rogar steadied her on the slippery rock and looked more intently at the waving cloth. He had heard of the elven landships but never seen one this close, or heard the song of the Dalish on the air as he had tonight.

'Do you want to go to them?' he asked the slender elf as she scrambled down the rock, into the shallow, rushing water at the fork in the river. She looked up at him and shook her head, making her wild black hair bounce.

'Not now, not at night,' she said 'Besides, they would not react well to a giant or a durgen'len entering their territory. Let alone the two shem-' She stopped and looked across to Horace and Rogar 'Humans. Quicklings.' He helped her out of the water, his walking stick sinking in the black sand.

'I might try and speak with them after dawn,' Lyna mused, almost to herself 'Maybe I can convince their elder to hold an audience with you.' Rogar simply smiled. The stubbornness of the Dalish was legendary even among his people.

***  
Dawn broke early in the sky above the party, with streaks of blue and pink and gold slicing through the inky grey of the last vestiges of the night.

Lairwulf woke first and set about washing the little part of his face that showed above his braided blonde beard. He noticed the sails against the horizon, where they still swayed in that ethereal breeze. Lyna awoke silently behind him and almost made him jump out of his skin when she spoke:

'Elves,' she hissed excitedly, picking at her teeth as she explained that she was going to talk with them to allow the party passage and even aid. He nodded sagely; he had encountered elves a few times while he was on the surface and knew they were excellent to have on your side. He wished her luck and went back to his bedroll.

Lyna watched as the specks of elves spilled out into the open air far down in the valley below. Nerves blossomed low in her stomach like a spreading warmth and she wiped her sweaty palms on her bare thighs.

She was not a people person, nor an elves elf.

***  
As she approached the gathering of aravels in the valley Lyna felt a strange feeling. The embroidered crests upon the sails of the aravels seemed familiar somehow, but she reasoned with herself that many clans may have descended from the same family in Arlathan. She could not see them, but she knew that all around her in the low-hanging willow branches hovered dozens of Dalish, all with arrows and spears trained on the interloper in their midst.

She wondered why no one came to investigate her as she drew even closer. The sound of elves speaking in the old tongue reached her ears and bathed her like honey. She missed her clan, she missed the Keeper, she missed her mother.. She missed her brother, who had been delirious with fever on the ground the last time she had seen him.

Lyna drew up to two tall, bent trees which seemed to serve as an entrance to the camp. The sunlight was bright now and beat down upon her face, which she shadowed with one arm.

Her vision swam for a moment and when it focused a clutch of elves stood before her, headed by a slim redhead who carried a staff.

The stunned look on the Keeper's face matched Lyna's perfectly.

'Lyna..?'

***  
Back at the camp by the river everyone had awoken, stirred by the smell of some small woodland creature that Lairwulf had all but cremated on the campfire for sustenance. Rogar and Lairwulf explained the absence of Lyna to Garrett and Horace.

Garrett had the book on the Rose of Amethyst open in his lap as he ate, gobs of animal fat dripping onto the thin paper.

'And you say the thing shocked you?' he said to Lairwulf around a particularly chewy mouthful 'I think the book explains why.' Lairwulf peered up, feigning disinterest, as Horace plucked the delicate treasure from his pack and held it aloft. The Rose glinted in the watery sunlight, casting crystal rainbows hither and thither.

'Turns out there's some kind of minor demon in there,' Garrett explained 'A sort of weak desire demon, still more powerful than anything I've ever seen. That is some powerful enchantment on that shiny rock, better than any Circle Tranquil, I'll tell you that. It, the demon, it loves love, basically.' He looked up, frustrated at the confused looks on the faces of the rest of the men.

'Basically, if that thing senses that you're in love it leaves you alone. Wants the love to flourish and whatnot. Makes it easier for it to get inside your head if it gets out.' Horace nodded sagely, as if he had known all along, even though he could barely read.

'Aye,' he grunted, twirling the Rose between thick fingers 'I never stopped loving me wife, even after she died. Doesn't explain why Lyna didn't get zapped to the void though.' He shrugged and put the gem away as Lairwulf muttered something derisively under his breath about Dagger and women and their feelings.

***  
After much greeting and embracing and even a few tears, Lyna had a place next to her mother at one of the three fires lit at the Dalish camp. Young elves clustered around, desperate to hear tales from outside the camp and Lyna's mother, Tera, coated her daughter's cheek in kisses.

Sadly, in all the horror and excitement caused by her imprisonment and subsequent questing, Lyna's brother had passed away from his illness, taking with him a child who had become infected as well. Tera accepted her daughter's story with grace.

The Keeper smiled and stood, causing the circle gathered around the fire to fall into a respectful silence.

'Welcome back, da'len,' she smiled, her voice like liquid gold 'Although it is a blessing to see you alive, although damaged somewhat, we have a pressing problem in these lands. e would have left by now if it were not for a skirmish with some shemlen knights in the area.' She gestured to one of the hunters, who had a thick puckered scar over one eye,

'A shemlen boy wandered too close for comfort,' he called loudly, being on the far side of the circle 'We warned him off respectfully, but he persisted to the point where we were forced to kill him, as we are known to do.' He pointed to another hunter, a woman, who continued the story.

'He kept trying to force his way into the camp, and threatened the children,' her voice rang out, her face obscured by the flames and sun glare 'We had no other choice. We were then informed, by an elven messenger, that the young man we killed was the son of the Bann who owns these hills.' She pointed to another hunter, who stood and spoke in a high, clear voice.

'A contingent of people calling themselves Peacekeepers has moved into the other side of the valley on the Bann's behalf. They are refusing to let us pass, and we believe they are intending to starve us out.'

Lyna was stunned. The actions of her clan against the young man were fair, given what he had done, but an army in the valley was almost declaring war on the elves.

'These Peacekeepers,' she called, standing up out of turn 'Human, I presume?' A sound of assent ran around the circle. Lyna grinned, huge and white.

'I have an idea.'

***  
The midday sun beat down upon the camp at the river by the time that Lyna crested the hill again, frantically waving her arms and shining with sweat. She all but collapsed next to a surprised Rogar.

'Well?' he asked brusquely and she widened her brown eyes, gasping for air. Horace handed her his waterskin with his good arm and she took three long pulls upon it.

'It's my clan,' she gasped, holding up a hand to ward off questions 'A group of shemlen soldiers -' Garrett narrowed his eyes angrily at the slur ' - calling themselves Peacekeepers is trying to starve them out in the valley. They've blocked both ends and they can't get the halla up the hills in this heat. If I go to them, they'll kill me, but if you go...' She trailed off.

Hope sparked in her dark eyes and Rogar felt his arms tense automatically. He wouldn't let another group suffer at the will of a stuffed-shirt lord.

Horace noticed this and sighed.

'You guys have me in enough trouble as it is,' he grumbled, stretching his good arm 'So I might as well carry on. Lairwulf?' The dwarf nodded exuberantly. He had come to see Lyna as almost a friend; a bond that dwarves did not take lightly.

Garrett scoffed. 'Why on earth should I put my life on the line for... for..' he appeared to struggle getting his words out as he heaved himself upwards and then looked Lyna dead in the eye 'For a bunch of pagan, unwashed knife-ears?' The party looked stunned. Lyna stood slowly.

'Look, mage,' she said through gritted teeth 'I know you don't like me and you don't have to, but if you dare insult my entire race on your own falsehood-based assumptions then I will not hesitate to kill you.'

Garrett scoffed again. 'Oh please, elf, you all need me.' Lyna guffawed cruelly.

'We need you like a hole in the head, spellbind,' she spat, venom in her voice. Despite her tiny stature, Garrett was cowed by the fierce look in her eyes. Lairwulf, Rogar and Horace followed the argument with their eyes, still shocked.

It happened simultaneously.

Lyna notched and shot an arrow at speeds too fast for the eyes of those who watched.

Garrett flung a fireball straight at her.

The arrow and the flaming ball met in midair with a resounding crash. Both assailants were flung backwards, digging their heels into the tough dirt, leaving tracks where they were pushed back.

Again and again, arrows and spells met in midair, neither touching Lyna nor Garrett.

Lyna reached back for another arrow and her hand closed around only empty air. Garrett grinned a devious smile and drew back his staff for a devastating final attack.

Lyna closed her eyes.

... Puff.

Smoke curled from the end of Garrett's staff, around the huge curved blade there. He had depleted his mana.

Silence reigned over the group for a minute and then Garrett launched himself at Lyna with an anguished cry, blade first.

THUNK.

His blade met another. Lairwulf had blocked the attack inches from Lyna with his own battleaxe.

'Listen, nug-shit-for-brains,' he growled 'I don't know what your problem is, and frankly I don't wanna know, but we were all put on this quest together. We saved your sorry ass from being more emotionally stunted than normal, and now you're gonna return the favour.'

He heaved his axe and Garrett stumbled backwards, blushing furiously, but submitting to his request.

'I'll come,' he mumbled, like a sulking child 'Because I have to. Not because I want to help though.'

***  
Rogar, Lairwulf and Garrett approached the largest encampment of soldiers, having left Horace at the riverside camp. Each Peacekeeper looked almost identical, with their silver armour polished to an almost impractical sheen and blue feathered plumes on their boxy helmets. They walked back and forth across the camp, some carrying supplies, others weapons, and still others seemingly wandering aimlessly in order to look busy.

It seemed as if many of the soldiers were reporting to a man in a fine mesh armour of King's mail, that shone silver and garish in the sun. He had a tall, blonde quiff of hair, held in place by some sort of pungent paste and watery grey eyes that seemed to look through you instead of at you, as discovered by the men when this man spotted them and strode confidently over, arms crossed at the wrist behind his back.

'Aha, sorry men,' he said, voice dripping with tedium 'But we don't accept dwarves or giants. Or mages for that matter.' Garrett rolled his eyes, every inch an overgrown moody teenager.

'Are you in charge here?' the mage demanded. The pompous blonde soldier looked momentarily taken aback before falling forward into an elaborate and complicated salute and bow combination.

'Ser Erik Marquart, head Peacekeeper of this fine area,' he said 'And who might you gentlemen be? And your business here is?' Rogar spoke for them.

'We have come on behalf of the Dalish elves you have confined to this valley,' he said, as polite as he could manage to such a pompous ass 'They request, kindly, that you allow them passage out of here.'

'And they won't come back,' added Lairwulf, despite the fact that the elves had agreed to no such thing. Ser Erik pulled a look of obviously overacted surprise and held his hands up in mock surrender.

'We were just following orders, fellows,' he gasped, causing Garrett to press a palm to his forehead in disgust 'I could always ask the Bann if we could just move them on, if you say they won't come back.'

'Oh Maker..' sighed Garrett, causing Rogar to inconspicuously elbow him in the ribs 'Ow! Oh, yeah...' He fixed an overly sweet smile onto his young face 'Yeah, the elves will remain out of this part of the Bannorn. Their leader swore on one of their gods, or something.'

Lairwulf rolled his eyes. Twinkle Toes was a sore loser.

Ser Erik grinned back, although the smile never touched his emotionless, steely eyes. 'Well, I'll have a talk with my men and we'll see what we can figure out. You run back to those elves of yours, chaps.' Erik placed an arm around Rogar and Garrett in an effort to shepherd them out of the Peacekeeper camp. Rogar made to protest, but was silenced by a look shot his way from the mage.

They walked back towards the riverside camp. Horace would signal to Lyna when they got back.

'Who knows,' grunted Lairwulf, with the effort of carrying his huge axe in the cloying heat 'Maybe that guy wasn't as much of a soulless bastard as he seemed.'

The others doubted it.

***  
'Ser Erik,' called a Peacekeeper as Erik returned to the hustle and bustle of the camp 'Who were those men? Are we proceeding tonight?'

Erik gave a hearty and wholly unconvincing laugh.

'Of course we are, Ser Jeffery! What else could we do?'

***  
After nightfall, the Dalish camp came alive.

Music poured from the lutes strummed by elven bards, songs spouted like wine from the lips of all the elves and they danced in pairs, linked by a red ribbon.

The dances and high spirits left Lyna breathless and dizzy as she spun. The elves on the other end of her ribbon changed often; first her mother, then the Keeper's son, an old wizened elf woman with only two teeth, the Keeper's son again, the clan storyteller... Her heart soared, although she still felt out of place.

Not at home.

She realised she missed her friends; the ones she had been adventuring with for weeks. Any thoughts of abandoning the quest to rejoin her clan were shoved from her mind, almost gleefully.

The revelry continued long into the night, loud and exuberant enough to drown out the sounds of any Peacekeepers lurking in the forest.

***  
Lairwulf was awoken by the heat on his face. He must have fallen asleep while watching the camp from the hill; it had been his shift to spy for signs of trouble. It had been his idea in the first place. He opened his eyes, expecting to be lying in a shaft of sunlight.

A glow filled his vision, too wild and strange to be sunlight.

Then the first screams flared up from the valley within seconds of the first explosions.

The Dalish camp glowed up from the valley.

The entire place was wreathed in furious, crackling blue flames.


	11. Chapter 11

Lyna woke in her mother's aravel to the sound of wood splintering and cracking. Confused, she sat up, rubbing her eyes with balled fists. She stared blearily out into the darkness which seemed thicker than usual, more ominous.

That's when she realised that the air was full of smoke.

Lyna leapt off of the bed and yanked her leather jerkin haphazardly over her head, the buckles and straps tangling in her wild hair. She looked around.  
Tera, her mother, was gone from the aravel.  
Grabbing Mirabelle, Lyna rushed out into the camp.

Lairwulf roused the men at the riverside camp. After shouting a garbled explanation over the screams and explosions from the camp they pulled on armour and robes, seized weapons and started the charge down the hill.

Even at the distance they approached from the heat was almost unbearable and even Garrett looked panicked.

The camp was in chaos.

Blue flames as tall as the trees raged all around, furiously consuming the aravels. The tiny red-headed Keeper led a small group of mages, attempting to stop the flames.

'They're magical flames,' croaked Garrett through the dense smoke 'It'll never work. But maybe we could hold them back long enough…' He choked and coughed. Rogar slammed a heavy fist into his back, dislodging the smoke. The blonde mage looked up at his companion, who nodded almost imperceptibly, and then jogged off into the smoke to aid the elven mages.  
Rogar scanned the camp with squinted, watery eyes. He spotted a familiar oily blonde head and pointed with one huge arm towards Ser Erik, Head Peacekeeper.

Dozens of identical humans in mirror-shiny plate armour poured into the camp past Lyna.  
They all brandished swords and shields, all as shiny and ornamental as the last.

She had climbed into a tree to better see the camp and find her mother. From her vantage point she had seen her travelling companions arrive and storm through the camp towards something she could not see.

Far below in the camp a second familiar sight hit her; hair just as wild as hers, but shorter and streaked with grey. Tera. Lyna grinned down at her mother, watching as she grabbed children from their aravels and pointed them towards the hills and the forests. Hide.

Distracted as she was, Lyna only pulled herself from her reverie when an unnatural heat began to creep up her body. Slowly she looked down at her tree, as though afraid to confirm her suspicions.

The trunk of the tress blazed violet and blue and a mage in a Peacekeeper helm turned their sightless face up to her, as though staring, before vanishing back into the smoke.

Rogar, Horace and Lairwulf shoved their way through the chaos and confusion of the camp.  
They saw women cut down by Peacekeepers, armoured men falling with arrows through their necks, children bawling at the sides of bleeding parents and the oily, blonde head of Erik grew ever closer.

The smoke cleared just for a moment, and that moment was enough for the men to see that something wasn't right; Ser Erik was half in and half out of his immaculate armour, a badly hemmed nightshirt still dangling underneath the half fastened breastplate. His face was twisted and confused and he screamed as his own men poured past him with weapons drawn.

Rogar drew up to Erik first and spun the weedy man around with one huge hand.  
'This isn't right!' screamed Erik, his watery grey eyes streaming 'This wasn't the plan! Someone else must be giving the orders!'  
The never ending stream of Peacekeepers was hard to follow, but Lairwulf spotted a tall man without a helm, who seemed to be directing the dozens of men towards the camp. He clapped a stout fist against Rogar's back and nodded towards the man. Erik let out a noise between a choke and a sob.  
'Jeffery,' he said 'I should have known. My second-in-command.' His proud posture caved in, shoulders sloping towards his chest. Rogar and Lairwulf nodded to one another and, leaving Horace to console the betrayed Peacekeeper, cut a swathe through the camp towards Jeffery.

Lyna scrambled up branch after branch but the flames seemed to be seeking her out with stretched, burning tendrils that longed to blister and scorch. She cried out in fear, her voice lost among the screams and explosions from the centre of camp.

A young male elf passed by her tree, with a shortbow slung across his back and long red hair in a loose braid, tied for sleeping. The Keeper's son. Lyna called out again, this time trying to get his attention. He tilted his face up and then stared in horror at the flaming tree and the young woman trapped in its branches. He shouted something that Lyna couldn't hear.

Through the smoke she saw his hands waving, urging her forward. She shimmied along the branch; as clumsy as she was on the ground, Lyna felt at home in the trees. She saw him nod.

Taking as deep a breath as she could in the dense smoke, Lyna jumped.

Garrett shone with sweat. He stood side by side with the elves, attempting to hold up a wall of ice against the worst of the blazes; water had been useless, turning to steam within inches of the flames.

'Hold!' called the Keeper over the roar of the fire and the hiss of the melting ice. She was holding up a second magical wall of ice with half the mages the camp could muster. Grunts of exertion rose from the crowd. Garrett turned his head towards her.  
'It's no use,' he called back 'We have to find the mages causing this!' The Keeper looked uneasy for a moment, biting her lip. Then she nodded at Garrett.  
'Go,' she shouted 'I trust you.'

Garrett, surprised by the elf's faith in him, found himself bowing to her. She smiled and turned back to the wall of ice, which glowed blue and purple like the flames.

WHAM.

Lyna felt all the air be knocked from her lungs as she slammed into the redheaded boy, who crumpled beneath her like a pile of dry leaves. The pair fell to the forest floor, pine needles sticking in her hair and clothes. They rolled, both coughing with smoke and the force of her fall.

Lyna lifted her head from the ground, a sharp throb of pain seething through the bubbling blisters that erupted on the back of her neck. The tree made an ominous creaking sound and she found herself being pounced upon and rolled sideways.

The Keeper's son shielded her with his body as the flaming tree slammed into the ground inches from where she had been. They were on their feet almost immediately, her refusing his support. She checked her bow for damage; Mirabelle was holding up astonishingly well.

'Are you okay?' His voice was surprisingly deep. Lyna nodded, then stopped herself and shook her head.  
'My mother,' she said, tentatively touching her burned neck 'I have to get to her before I even think of fighting.'  
'Tera, yes,' he said, with a face that Lyna couldn't quite read 'We've spoken in the past-' He shook himself slightly, like a dog getting out of a lake 'I'll do my best to get you to her but I can't make a-'

His melodious voice was cut off.

A whip-thin Peacekeeper assassin had materialised behind him and thrust a knife into his spine. His eyes widened and for a second he looked so much younger, just a child. Lyna, disoriented and shocked, stepped back. The Keeper's son slid off of the knife and onto the ground with a dull thud.

The assassin clicked their neck, once, twice and then flung himself at Lyna.

Ser Jeffery grinned as he shouted hoarsely at the Peacekeepers. After years of work under that pompous slimeball, he had the power now and he was going to use it to wipe every last one of these filthy knife-ears out of his homeland.

He waved a spiked mace above his head, a vicious weapon made for bludgeoning that lacked the usual sheen of a Peacekeeper's weapon. He swung it backwards for another wave and was surprised when it refused to come forward. Believing it caught on some branches, he turned calmly around and found himself face to chest with a giant.

Rogar held the cruel weapon steadfastly with one huge fist, glaring down at the young Peacekeeper in his ostentatious armour and plumed helmet.  
'Son,' he growled, his low voice audible even over the cacophony around them 'You've done enough.' Jeffery craned his neck painfully upwards to stare Rogar in the eye.  
'These filthy knife-ears killed the son of my Bann,' he hissed 'I have not done enough yet.' Rogar twisted his head to loosen the crick in his neck. Lairwulf rolled his eyes.  
'You bought this on yourself.'  
Rogar swung his powerful arms and greatsword met mace with a resounding crash and a tremor that shook Jeffery's arms.

At Rogar's back, Lairwulf swung his ponderous battleaxe in a wide arc, mowing down a semicircle of identical Peacekeepers in their shiny armour.  
Jeffery lifted his buckler, blocked the sword and landed a glancing blow on Rogar's ribs. He was stunned as the giant brought the hilt of his sword crashing down against the Peacekeeper's unprotected head.

In the forests all around, the sound of a dozen bowstrings pulling taut rent the air in two.

The hunters had arrived.

Garrett found himself deep in the dark of the forest. The first weak, grey light of day was beginning to mark the inky blue of the night sky and he shuddered in the pre-dawn cold, far enough away from the camp to miss the heat of the flames and drown out the sounds of the screaming.

Yet, he had still seen no sign of any magic.

Just as he was about to turn back and check closer to the camp a pulsing glow caught his attention, in a dense cluster of trees off to the left. He blinked hard and looked again.

A pulsing _red_ glow shone in the gaps between the tree trunks.

_No. No, no, no._

Garrett jogged to the trees and peered into the clearing that they surrounded.

The source of the red glow was a young girl, no more than 15 years old. She wore the flamboyant armour of the Peacekeepers, but her gauntlets lay discarded on the ground at her feet, and scarlet blood dripped from her wrists. Where the drops hit the ground a fine red mist arose, which caught alight as it reached her fingertips. The fire was violet and blue and it shot off into the night like a meteor.

Garrett gritted his teeth hard, almost as if they would break. More flames shot past him, illuminating the area where he stood.

The mage must have made an intimidating sight in the half darkness, as the girl stopped. She looked so young, so innocent in the half-light that Garrett almost stopped… until she grinned wickedly and flung her bloodied arms in his direction. Immediately, heat coursed through his body as though his very blood was boiling in his veins and his knees buckled beneath him. He lurched forwards and then collapsed, panting as the heat took over his other senses.

The girl stepped forward, taunting him, ramping the pain up as though she were about to end it and then dialling it back just enough so that her prey did not black out.

'She's enjoying this,' thought Garrett as he lay on the ground, one hand outstretched towards his dropped staff. He retched and coughed, splattering the ground around him with a vile mix of blood and bile. It stank of copper and acid and burned his throat.

The young mage plucked her own staff from her back and twirled it like a baton. She gave a high, girlish laugh and dangled the bladed end of her staff above Garrett, who saw the blade swim in his vision multiple times, spinning and dipping with his confusion.  
His hand closed around the cold wooden shaft of his own staff. He smiled weakly, his pupils dilated wide and black, reflecting the fire.

The blade dropped.

Lyna backed herself up against a burned up shell of a tree, still trying to absorb the shock. The boy she had been dancing with, just the night before, gutted in front of her…  
The assassin swooped in and Lyna dodged gracefully, both rogues as quick as the other, but the Peacekeeper was more agile and healthier than Lyna. The blade caught Lyna a few times, opening gashes on her arms and chest. She hissed in pain.

Subtly unsheathing her own blade, Lyna began to back away from the assassin, as though cowering. The assassin laughed, a harsh sound like winter wind, and Lyna allowed the masked killer to taunt her, to call her knife-ear and filthy and pagan, for Lyna was not really cringing.

With one foot, she searched for a flat rock or a springy tree root, anything. Becoming desperate, she found a rock embedded in moss. Perfect.  
She waited, crouched, pleading dramatically and as the assassin drew close, Lyna sprang.  
Lyna's blade sank into the exposed throat of the assassin with a sickening squelch and a spray of blood coated her face like confetti. The killer gave out a series of wet choking sounds as their own blood filled their throat like sticky copper wine. Instead of putting them out of their misery as she would have done before, Lyna merely spat on the dying Peacekeeper and half-limped back towards the camp in search of her mother.

'Listen shem,' came a smoke-strangled voice from the trees 'You'll want to put that weapon down.'

Rogar looked behind him, blade still raised against Jeffery. Elves, lean and lithe, battered and bruised, but fierce-eyed and bows ready; they stood in the spaces between the trees and balanced on the slimmest of branches. Each and every one had an arrow trained on Ser Jeffery.

The renegade Peacekeeper stared frantically around at the elves all around. For a long, tense moment he stood, shoulders heaving, sweat shining in the glow from the passing fireballs.

With an inhuman yell, Jeffery launched himself at Lairwulf and Rogar.

Using one huge hand, Rogar shoved the dwarf into the dirt by the back of his neck. Lairwulf let out a wheeze as the hilt of his battleaxe smashed into his chest but remained down.

The whooshing sound of dozens of arrows sailing overhead filled the night, even silencing the crackle of the flames, followed by the cracking of twigs as Jeffery staggered backwards. A screeched Dalish word and another hundred arrows were fired. The dull thunk of arrows into wood echoed across the clearing. Rogar and Lairwulf peered up.  
Jeffery was pinned to a wide tree trunk by a dozen arrows piercing his flesh, his weapon hand locked around his mace still, pinned above his head. His other arm dangled limply and blood, scarlet and hot, dripped thickly from his mouth. All around Peacekeepers lay dead, green-fletched Dalish arrows protruding grotesquely from their flimsy armour. The pair on the ground rolled away from one another, both dwarf and giant lying on their backs gazing at the elves that stood over them. Two hunters helped them to their feet.

'Their leader is dead,' said a dark-skinned elf with a gash across his face 'The rest of the shemlen soldiers scatter like rats. What do you suggest we do?' Rogar looked to Lairwulf, who grunted and shrugged his broad shoulders, confused at their deference to a human.  
'Do not take chances with the servants of a bann,' he said quietly 'Get rid of them all.' The injured elf flashed a quick, bright smile up at Rogar and screeched a command to his hunters, who echoed the scream across the camp.  
The hunters jogged into the woods after their prey, weapons raised.

'So, what now?' asked Lairwulf, heaving his axe onto his shoulder. Rogar grinned and picked up his dropped greatsword. Lairwulf let out a snort and attempted to copy the Dalish screeching all around them.

The pair charged into battle with the elves.

Garrett's eyes opened wide with panic for the briefest of seconds and he rolled as quickly as he could away from the keen edge of the blade, which sank into ground where he had lain; the ground that was soft with Garrett's blood. Panting on his hands and knees, he pulled his own staff closer to him, the bladed end catching and ripping the hem of his ruined robes.

The girl seemed underfed and weak and she struggled pulling the blade out of the earth. The noise of the battle seemed to be drawing closer, causing her to try and tug harder and faster, shoulders slumping with tiredness.

Garrett saw his opportunity and he seized it.

In one swift movement he sat up and swung his staff at the back of knees with all the strength he could muster, the momentum of his own swing dragging him forwards. She crumpled with a strangled yell, her face smashing against her staff as she toppled like a broken tree. A sickening crunch exploded as her nose broke against the thick wood and more blood poured across her lips, sticking them together.

Still dizzy, Garrett wrapped an arm around her neck, dragging her back as he fell back onto his heels. He was breathing heavily now, but lucid, the shapes and colours swimming before his eyes reforming into solid objects.

'This morning,' he panted against her neck, muffling her sobs with the sleeve of his robe 'I would have let you cremate these elves. Unfortunately, one of them showed me just how loyal they can be. Much more loyal than any group of soldiers.' He dropped his staff again and slid his free hand up against the back of her armour. His hand brushed the pale, warm skin at the nape of her neck and she whimpered. He chuckled and slid his hand into her hair. The sounds of the battle raged closer and Garrett caught glimpses of shining silver armour through the trees.

Pulling the girl upright with him, he walked towards the trees. The hand in the girl's hair began to glow a sickly green, and it burned against her scalp with a hissing noise.  
'How many other mages?' he growled into her ear, still marching towards the sounds of fighting with her as his shield. She struggled to speak around her own broken nose.

'Just me,' she gagged 'Only me. They don't take mages.' Garrett nodded and dug his hand harder into her skull, making the girl scream. If she had not been using blood magic then Garrett would never hurt her, but as she was… He saw her as less than human. He grunted with the effort of keeping her upright.

Finally, the battle burst into the clearing with an almighty shout from the crowded mass of bodies, armour and weapons catching what little light had begun to creep through the canopy.

Garrett smiled against the neck of his quarry. She rocked with the pain of the handprint seared onto her scalp and he tossed her into the thick of the battle.

Swept up in the cawing crowd of elves, Lyna seized her mother's arm as they were spirited towards the woods. Gratefully, Tera gripped Lyna back as tight as she could, promising that she was unhurt. Lyna dropped a swift kiss on her mother's cheek and smiled, before pulling Mirabelle from her back and charging into the battle.

Lairwulf swung his battleaxe heavily into the chest of the nearest Peacekeeper, revelling in the crunch of ribs and spurt of lifeblood that coated his face. He turned and instinctively threw his arms out to catch a silver object hurtling towards him. A girl landed in his arms, a thin girl in Peacekeeper armour. Her nose was clearly broken and dried blood coated her face and hands, further confusing him.

'Lairwulf!' screamed a voice from the direction the girl had come from. He looked up, more confused than before.

'Twinkles?' he bellowed back above the clash of metal on metal all around him.

'Throw her!'

'What?'

'THROW! HER!' Lairwulf shook his hand at the bizarre command, but obliged with the mage's command, heaving the girl towards a cluster of Peacekeepers who were battling a single elf.

Almost as soon as the girl brushed against the Peacekeepers her body exploded into a thousand sickly green shards of meat, taking out all three Peacekeepers and the elf as she did so.

Lairwulf all but dropped his axe. Garrett came limping into the crowd, leaning heavily on his bladed staff.

'Walking Bomb,' he wheezed by way of explanation, before throwing a fireball into the assembled soldiers. Lairwulf cleaved the head of another Peacekeeper from their shoulders with one powerful swing, standing back to back with the mage.

From the green darkness around them an arrow sailed into the neck of a Peacekeeper whose blade was inches from Garrett's throat. The arrow shattered, hitting several more soldiers, making them easy pickings for a few lightning bolts. A dark blur fell from a nearby tree and jogged haphazardly towards Garrett and Lairwulf.

'Aneth ara,' grinned Lyna, waving her bow 'Having fun yet?' Garrett shook his head. She motioned for him to duck and he crouched quickly, allowing her to fire three arrows in quick succession into a few more soldiers. Lairwulf took down another two and all around more and more Peacekeepers collapsed with the green fletching of a Dalish arrow protruding from their chests.

Two Peacekeepers to their left fell, revealing the tall figure of Rogar, who grinned through a beard soaked in blood and filth. He approached the group, cutting down more soldiers on his way.

He was bleeding, a stomach wound. Lairwulf was favouring his injured arm again, Lyna was burned and Garrett had been ravaged by magic, but miraculously, wondrously, they were alive.

The last few Peacekeepers had been cut down. Those who were not dead had gone scurrying back to Ser Erik at the ruins of their camp where Horace had stood guard over the ex-Head Peacekeeper, as he had tried to throw himself into the fight in his nightclothes.

At the burned shell of the valley where the aravels had once stood elves picked at the remains of belongings in the ash and mud. The metal handle of a cooking pot, some charred string, trinkets and a few coins littered the earth. Broken weapons and dented armour, both Peacekeeper and Dalish, shone against the blackness.

Still other elves crouched by the side of lost loved ones, covering them with the tattered remains of aravel sails. The Keeper sat cross-legged by the corpse of her son, gripping his limp hand as though willing life back into that half-burned body. Lyna stood off to the side, grimly clinging to her mother.

'You know,' murmured Tera, resting her head on her daughter's shoulder, their curly black hair twisting together 'The Keeper and I were arranging a betrothal between you and her boy. Before you disappeared.' Lyna made a confused noise. 'Oh please, the Keeper's son and our greatest female hunter? It would have been good for the clan.' Tera fingered a necklace that she wore; a simple wooden ring on a black cord, carved with some intricate wording. She leaned away and pulled it over her head, handing it to Lyna.

'I was going to give this to you once you'd married the boy,' explained Tera as Lyna ran calloused fingertips over the ring 'Your father gave this to me. But I suppose..' Tera trailed off and slipped the necklace over Lyna's head, having to tug it through her wild hair a little. 'It's all yours. Give it to whoever you wish. And I'm pretty sure you have someone in mind; I know that look, lethallan.' Lyna smiled, looking down at the floor with her fingers tangled in the necklace. She leaned forward and embraced her mother.

'Ma'arlath mamae.'

Rogar and Garrett silently watched as Horace handed a pack and a few coins to Erik, before watching as the oily soldier and a few ex-Peacekeepers slinked off towards the charred forest. Horace watched for a few moments before lifting his crossbow over his shoulder and barrelling back towards Rogar.

'Erik's gonna take the Rose to the Guild for us,' he explained, twisting his neck to loosen it 'Saves us a journey and means I can help you with whatever you've got going on at this fort without worrying that the Guild are after their loot.'

'As far as we know we're just checking in on Weathers' troops that are stationed there,' said Rogar, sheathing his enormous blade, which he had finally finished cleaning 'In fact, we're not too far away now. According to Garrett's map there's a network of tunnels under the mountains that should take us basically right there.' Horace nodded and rolled a wad of tobacco leaf in his free hand, popping it into his mouth to chew.

'I hope you're right about this short journey,' he said around his mouthful 'I think this journey's been bad enough as it is.'

Lairwulf dragged himself up next to Rogar, looking at least as tired as everyone felt.  
'Heard we don't have to go to Orzammar after all?' he asked, to which Horace nodded 'Ha! Guess I can thank the Stone for one thing after all.' Rogar smiled and handed the dwarf his pack.

Lyna arrived at the group next, after sharing a tearful farewell with her mother and a few consoling words with an almost catatonic Keeper. She remained silent, but gave her friends a weepy smile, even being helped over a tree root by Garrett. They both understood that the gesture was more than simple politeness now.

A soundless agreement ran around the group; tired, bruised, burned and battered though they were, they were ready for this journey to be over. Soon.

The mouth of the tunnel was a huge, dark, dripping maw in the side of a Frostback peak.

The floor dropped away sharply after the mouth of the tunnel, leaving a long drop for the shorter members of the party.

'I could always get down first and lift you down, dwarf,' muttered Rogar. Lairwulf looked almost offended at the suggestion and marched straight into the darkness. He seemed to hover for a second before tumbling out of view, a pained oof travelling up after him. Lyna giggled.

'I'll take you up on that offer I think, Rogar,' she said, stifling another laugh 'I'm not in the mood to fall any further.' Rogar gave her a warm and genuine smile, before dropping down himself. After helping Lyna and Garrett down he allowed Horace to clamber into the darkness on his own.

Despite the warmth and brightness outside, the tunnels were impractucally dark and damp. Garrett took the nudging as a sign to create a light and he walked at the front of the group, with a fireball lit in his hand. The roof of the tunnel was low and stalagmites and stalactites punctured every surface, creating a hazard for every member of the party. They twisted their bodies around each obstacle, with occasional falls and stumbles.

'Garrett,' groaned Lyna 'Why, why did we have to follow your stupid map? I'm sure the long way would have been much easier than this.'

Garrett scoffed. 'We would have ended up in the Korcari Wilds. Place is full of Chasind and witches and I've even heard there's darkspawn out there. No chance.'

Lairwulf let out a barking laugh. 'Darkspawn aren't your problem, surfacer. Try living in Orzammar.'

'Dwarf, you don't live in Orzammar.'

'That's not my point.'

'Stop sodding arguing.' grumbled Horace from the back of the group, nudging Rogar to make him hurry up. Garrett held the flame up higher to cast the light further.

In the corner of Lairwulf's eye something gleamed in the flickering firelight. He darted off from the group.

'Dwarf, what on earth are you doing?' hissed Garrett, turning his back to a fork in the tunnels to follow Lairwulf. Several holes had opened in the tunnel walls over time and Lairwulf appeared to be inspecting a narrow one with deep intent.

'Definitely something in there,' he said, almost to himself, with his eye pressed up against the aperture 'Could be valuable. I'm gonna try and get it.'

Before anybody could utter any form of protest, Lairwulf had thrust his hand into the hole. Lyna, Rogar and Horace staggered forwards in single file to observe what the dwarf was trying to do.  
'Aha! Got it!' he called 'Feels like it might be an amulet or something like that. Give me a second.' He moved back, or tried to. He tugged again. His arm was stuck. Garrett let out an exasperated groan, followed by what sounded like a growl.

'Did someone just… growl?' asked Lyna, confused. Rogar shook his head and both Horace and Lairwulf denied it.  
'Wasn't me,' claimed Garrett 'Sounded close though, we better get you out and get moving. I don't know what could be living down here.'  
Another growl pierced the air, sounding closer than before. Rogar put one hand on the shoulder of a trembling Lyna but still firmly grasped the hilt of his greatsword.

'Can we not just leave him?' squeaked Lyna, leaving crescent shaped dents in her palms where her anxious nails dug in. Lairwulf chuckled nervously, hoping she was joking.  
The growling was all around them now and Garrett began whispering an incantation to make his fireball grow in size and intensity but before he could finish a great jet of fire illuminated the tunnels for just long enough for the entire group to see the source of the growls.

A horde of green, mabari-sized dragonlings swarmed at the fork in the tunnels and behind them, with great leathery wings spread and blocking the exit, a single, grey-scaled dragon.

A dragon with teeth the size of a man's forearm.

Teeth that were bared in an angry growl and that were mere inches from where Horace had been minutes before.


End file.
